To those who know him best, Carroll Academy’s Hunter Brackin is better known as Hollywood.
While football coach Bo Milton says the name fits the 5-foot-5 Brackin, it doesn’t encompass the toughness his senior running back shows on and off the field.
“Pound for pound, he’s probably the toughest kid that I have ever coached,” Milton said. “He’s a 140-pound kid on a good day. He is not going to go down on first contact and people don’t get that until they play him. We had teams that weren’t worried about him and were really surprised. He’s just tough, he’s like a pine knot.
He’s muscled up,” Milton said. “He is probably quicker than he is straight-line speed. But being as hard-nosed and tough as he is, he is just tenacious running the football. And he’s just a hard worker. He has a great work ethic.”
Brackin returns for his senior year as the unquestioned leader of the offense. As a sophomore, Brackin ran for 757 yards on 126 carries and 10 touchdowns. As a junior, Brackin rushing for 633 yards on 95 carries before breaking his collarbone against Winona Christian.
“I was kind of worried about him when he moved up before his 10th grade year,” Milton said. “He was like 115 pounds, maybe, but he’s out there running scout team tailback and making plays. When he was in the 10th grade, we had Jeb Beck as our tailback in the I. He’s not an I back but he thinks he’s an I back. Hollywood would love to be in the I because he thinks he’s a 200-pound back and he runs like it. He would come in as the back up and make plays. So we had to find a way to get him on the field more so we switched to more of a wing-T look and moved Jeb to fullback and he was all for that.”
Last year, Brackin helped the Rebels rush for more than 4,000 yards before the injury which the senior said “was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through.”
“We did lose something when he got hurt, there’s no doubt about that,” Milton said. “We lost that little bit of toughness that he brought us. It took two kids to replace him. We lost some toughness on the running game. Those guys did a good job of filling in. Just the whole mix. He had well over 700 yards last year before he broke his collar bone and was well on his way to over 1,000 yards, even with Morgan rushing for more than 2,000 yards. Because you look at it, the other tailbacks that filled in for Hunter ran for more than 500 yards in the playoffs.”
With Morgan Mims and his 2,000 rushing yards gone, Brackin is now the feature back for the Rebels.
“He will be a big part of this season,” Milton said. “We’ve got some yards to replace but we aren’t going to change too much. We have got running backs behind Hunter. We’ve got legs this year. We feel like we are two deep at fullback and both wing backs so we have six running backs we can get on the field. Of course, he is the No. 1 running back. All six of those kids will play defense so we will rotate them around and keep fresh legs for offense but he will be the main guy. He is a senior and it’s his time and we are looking forward to a huge year from him.”
Brackin said individual awards and achievements are nice but that’s not his main focus going into the season.
“I love running the football,” Brackin said. “There no other feeling like it. When you play at Carroll, you better learn how to run the football. I want to go to state, that’s the main thing. I don’t care how many yards I run for or setting any records, I just want to take my team to state and say that we have done something. The records would be nice but the main thing I want to do is take my team to state.”
It’s that attitude and toughness that makes him a favorite among coaches and teammates.
“Hollywood just wants to win and when you can get kids to buy into that, then you’ve got something,” Milton said. “He is not a selfish kid. You can see it and you can hear it from him. He just wants to win. Every good player has a little bit of selfishness in them. He wants the ball but he wants to win. His individual goals are not going to be in front of the team.I just know that about him. It killed him sitting on the sideline. He wants to be in the middle of the action. He’s just a fun kid to be around.”
On defense, Brackin is more suited to play cornerback but his toughness has landed him at linebacker.
“He played outside linebacker as well at 130 pounds,” Milton said. “And he will hit you as well. Now when he gets you, he is going to light you up because he’s only 5-foot-5 and is going to get you under the chin. He’s like a bullet when he hits you. He’s just one of those hard-nosed, tough kids. I just love him to death and the Hollywood name just fits him. And he embraces that. He runs with it and the whole team likes him and likes being around him.”
Off the field, Brackin said he would like to have the opportunity to play college football but knows his size will hold him back. Besides football, Brackin spends his spare time working with his father’s roofing business and either fixing trucks or tearing them up. Brackin did say he would like to take up welding “He just loves to work,” Milton said. “He tends to tear up his trucks, whether it’s working on them or playing in them. He had a truck last year and I don’t know what he did but he had a five-gallon paint can attached to the muffler so it would have this loud sound. You just have to laugh about it. You have to have that kind of kid on your team to be successful. You have to have the little fiery, tough kid that is going to give you 100 percent at everything he does.”
