The way Branden Scott tells it, there was never really a question of what he was going to do after he didn’t make the middle school soccer team.

He had one thing to say to the coach who cut him – he’d made a mistake – and saying so set off a chain of events that led him where he is now.

“It’s exciting,” he said, still processing a moment he had been working toward for years. “It’s kind of breathtaking … I feel like I’m taking a step closer to my dream.”

On May 22, Scott signed a letter of intent to play soccer at Dyersburg State Community College, joining classmates Logan Spence and Wyatt Bogard as part of a three-player group from Munford that will suit up together for the Eagles next fall.

The signing ceremony was held at Munford High School with his coaches, his teammates, and his family looking on, the same people who watched him turn being cut from the middle school team into signing to play on the collegiate level.

Being cut fueled him

Branden has been playing soccer since he was three years old, which is roughly as soon as he could run in a straight line. He came up through Munford Parks & Recreation leagues before moving to Atoka as that program developed. He was good early and was the kind of player who stood out before the competition sorted itself out.

Club soccer was out of reach at the time, and when middle school tryouts arrived, so did an illness he suspects was early COVID.

After not making the team, he said, the frustration he felt was directed inward, not at the coach or the circumstances.

“I was more frustrated at myself than anybody else, because I knew I could make that team.”

No explanation came from the coaching staff, and Branden said he didn’t ask for one. He went home, recovered from the illness, and started running. Then he ran more. He practiced. He came back the following year ready to prove something – and when he got there he found Coach Mike Jines first.

“After I recovered from my sickness, I forced myself to practice and run and practice and run,” Branden said. “Next year it proved off, and I was really proud of myself.”

Jines still laughs telling the story.

“This little kid walks up to me, and he tells me, ‘Coach, you made a mistake,'” he said. “He looked at me dead serious. You made a mistake. You need to come watch me play. And I did.”

Branden made the team. He was a starter before the season was half over, and he hasn’t stopped since.

“It felt like I took a step closer,” he said of making the roster in 7th grade. “But I knew I was nowhere near good enough for more steps.”

Unfiltered, and he owns it

Jines has a particular way of describing Branden that goes beyond the stats, beyond the comeback story. He said the thing he loves most about him has nothing to do with goals or assists.

“He’s always going to tell you what he thinks,” Jines said. “He’s unfiltered, just like me. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He’s going to tell you what he thinks, but he’s going to own it. He never backs down. He never really steps away from it. If he says it, he means it, and he owns it. And that’s what you want from a player.”

The portrait that emerges from the people who coached him is of a teenager who is not always easy and never pretends to be. He will tell you what he thinks, and he will own it. Jines said it plainly: unfiltered, emotional, confident to the point where some coaches might flinch – and exactly the kind of player you want in a tight game.

Branden spent his high school career under head coach Jarrod Magan, who also coached him at the club level. Branden credited another coach as someone central to his development.

“Without him,” Branden said at the signing, “I don’t think I would be here.”

Along the way, a club coach raised the standard in a way Branden hadn’t encountered before. The conditioning requirements were strict – meet the mark or don’t play – and there were days Branden said he got lazy and gave up. He kept coming back.

“Nothing in life is gonna be just given to you without any effort,” he said. “Trust is earned, so is respect, and if you can’t prove that you deserve it, then you won’t get it.”

He eventually earned that coach’s respect. The moment he points to came against rival club team the Lobos, with the stakes about as high as a club soccer game can get – the losing team had to wear the winner’s jerseys. With five minutes left and Munford trailing, Branden scored to tie it 1-1.

“That’s pretty much basically where I am today,” he said. “And I’m still improving steadily but rapidly at the same time.”

By his senior season, the results were on the sheet. Magan ticked through them at the signing: double-digit goals, double-digit assists, leadership on the field that went beyond the numbers. Then he got to the stat he delivered with a grin.

“Zero official red cards,” Magan said.

“Not that official,” someone said from the back of the room.

“We added that in,” Magan acknowledged, and the room laughed. “But the maturity you’ve shown over the course of your career, academic and athletic — I couldn’t be more proud to have been your coach. It’s been an honor of a lifetime.”

The match against Crockett County

Ask Branden for the memory that stays with him most from his years in a Munford uniform, and he answers without pausing.

Sophomore year. State playoff. Pre-match prediction sites had Munford as heavy underdogs against Crockett County, something in the range of 90-10 odds.

“As the game went on, we quickly made it go to 50-50,” he said. “And in the PKs, that’s when we started going forward — because we knew if we held them to PKs, we could win.”

Crockett County missed its first two penalty kicks. When teammate Baker Bogaard converted on the fourth attempt, Munford was going to state for the first time in school history.

“I always think about that day like it was yesterday,” Branden said. “We beat a team that should have killed us.”

One step at a time

Dyersburg State is a stop on the map, not the destination. Branden is plain about that.

“I’ve gotten to that part, but I’ve got so much more to do,” he said. “I’ve still got to get through this college, then I’m going to go to another university, and hopefully play for them too, and then take a step to pro.”

He said his father, Atoka Fire Chief Bill Scott, has been both a consistent supporter and a tough critic, the kind of parent who does not let a dream settle into comfortable talk. There were times when Branden wasn’t sure he was good enough.

“I was doubting myself a lot because I didn’t think I was good enough,” he said. “I’ve been hard on myself so I don’t make him think that I’m not ready for this.”

His father’s response was not gentle.

“He’s told me, ‘If you’re not good enough, quit. But if that’s the thought you’re gonna have, then why should I help you?'” Branden said. “I took that to heart.”

There were stretches where the work felt like too much – schoolwork piling up, the body running low – and he thought about walking away. He chose not to.

“You just never make a decision when you’re upset,” he said, “because you will regret it later in life.”

He has spent time over the years with younger players coming up behind him, and he does not offer them easy reassurance.

“Life is going to give you some hard challenges, and it’s going to knock you down repeatedly,” he said. “But if you want this, if you feel like you deserve it — you better prove to everybody why. And if you want it so bad, you’ll get back up no matter what.”

Jines said he has been telling Branden’s story to players who just got cut since before Branden ever put on a Munford jersey. He plans to keep telling it.

“A lot of kids don’t do that,” Jines said.

As the stage cleared, Jines leaned in with one last thought for Branden: Nothing was given, it was earned.