Supported by family logging business, Kendell Brooks kept chopping until he landed at Michigan State
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EAST LANSING – The coronavirus pandemic couldn't slow down Kendell Brooks. With football on hold in 2020 at North Greenville University, a Division II school in Tigerville, South Carolina, Brooks didn't have a problem keeping himself busy. He went home, to Swansea, South Carolina, to work for the family business: Taylor Logging and Tree Service.
"The work my family does, it's kind of like eight hours of working out," Brooks said. "We're commercial loggers. Being out in the woods, working with chainsaws, you work up a pretty good sweat."
He also exerted himself Saturday in his first start at Michigan State since joining the program in January 2021. In the lineup in place of injured safety Xavier Henderson, Brooks had the marquee game of his MSU career, tallying a personal-best seven tackles to go along with a forced fumble and a pass breakup in a 52-0 shutout of Akron at Spartan Stadium.
"I wasn't too uncomfortable," he said. "I mean, I've played college football before. I started every game at my last school, so it was kind of just, 'Go in and execute my assignments.' I prepared, and everything else just took care of itself."
Brooks' journey to East Lansing was far from straightforward.
It was akin to the winding, twisty country roads connecting the small South Carolina towns those in his family's logging business know like the backs of their hands.
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'It was really a no brainer'
Helping his family wasn't the only gig Brooks had in 2020. He added another job as a Pizza Hut delivery driver. But he wasn't done: He also started working for FedEx.
"I was trying to stack some money up," he said.
That's because he wasn't sure where his football career may be heading. With North Greenville electing not to play that year, Brooks decided to enter the transfer portal.
He tempered his expectations.
Worst-case scenario, he believed he could move on to another Division II school. Best-case scenario, he thought he potentially could take a slight step up a level. He had an offer from Mercer, an FCS team in Macon, Georgia. Brooks also thought about Georgia State, an FBS program located in downtown Atlanta that plays in the Sun Belt Conference.
Imagine his surprise, then, when shortly after putting his name in the portal, he received a call from Harlon Barnett, Michigan State's secondary coach.
"It was kind of like an introductory-type conversation, me getting to know him, him getting to know me," Brooks said. "And then he asked that I send over my film."
Two days later, Barnett called back. He had another person on the line with him: coach Mel Tucker. The pair offered Brooks an opportunity to make the leap to the highest echelon of college football.
"It was really a no brainer. They were my biggest offer," he said. "And then I was set. I was like, 'I'm coming to Michigan State.' "
Despite the massive chasm between a Power 5 league and Division II, Tucker said Brooks' skillset stood out.
"He had the size, he could run," Tucker said. "He's a physical player. So it's just a matter of training and preparing and learning the scheme and how we practice."
Another MSU connection
Before he enrolled at Michigan State, Brooks admits he knew next to nothing about the university or its athletics programs — save for the men's basketball team. He remembered the Spartans being "pretty good" when Denzel Valentine led the way. But other than that, his knowledge of sports was limited by geography. In "SEC country," as he put it, he followed the Big Ten ... from a distance.
Possessing an in-depth knowledge of sports wasn't a priority. He had other interests.
Cars, specifically drag racing. And other types of horse power — literally. Brooks enjoys riding horses. He'd traverse South Carolina, visiting riding stables. He acquired the skill as a kid, hopping on a horse whenever he'd visit his grandmother's farm.
Calling him a cowboy at heart wouldn't be inaccurate.
"You could say that," Brooks said with a laugh.
He also chuckled at another instance of his obliviousness to sports fandom.
Brooks' girlfriend is Muhsin Muhammad's daughter. Yes, the former MSU and Lansing Waverly great and Carolina Panthers legend.
When they began dating, Brooks admitted he had "no idea" about Muhammad's background at MSU or in the NFL. The more he began to hang out with her, he started "putting two and two together." He began to pick up on all the memorabilia hanging in Muhammad's house from his days as a Panther.
A talk with his grandfather, a Carolina fan, opened his eyes.
"My granddad told me (Muhammad) was a Carolina Panther great," Brooks said.
As far as he's aware, Muhammad didn't call in any favors to Michigan State, trying to help his daughter's boyfriend snag a spot on the football team. As soon as the Spartans contacted Brooks, Muhammad excitedly recalled the program's history and his time playing in Spartan Stadium.
Muhammad wasn't surprised his alma mater saw something in Brooks.
"He had watched my film as well," Brooks said. "So he knew that I could play at this level."
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Showing growth
In two seasons at North Greenville, Brooks was a difference maker, collecting 78 tackles in 19 games. But it took him all of one practice at Michigan State to realize the difference in speed and physicality at the Power 5 level.
"The first day of spring ball, we went out there in spiders," said Brooks, referring to the light padding players wear over their shoulders, chest and back. "Spencer Brown was at right tackle and he climbed up and threw me on my back. I'm like, 'OK, I see how it is.' "
Not surprisingly, it's been a slow climb. After a year away from football in 2020, Brooks played in all 13 games last season, primarily on special teams. He was on the field for 156 special teams plays, making tackles on kickoffs (versus Purdue and Indiana) and punts (Ohio State). Brooks believed that experience helped him heading into the 2022 campaign.
"It kind of allowed me to get my feet wet into Big Ten football," he said. "I think special teams kind of just prepared me to go out on defense."
He also had 26 snaps for the defense last year, finishing with nine tackles and a pass breakup. But he's well past that through two games this fall, notching five tackles in the opener against Western Michigan before his seven-takedown outing in Saturday's win.
"I think it's just cool to see how far I've grown as a player coming from my last school to now," Brooks said. "I've learned a lot since I've been here about football. So I think it was cool to kind of put that to use on the field."
Brooks ended Akron's promising first drive by jarring the ball loose on a vicious hit, leading to an MSU fumble recovery. On the ensuing possession, he broke up a pass deep downfield. Another bone-crunching collision led to another Akron fumble. (Though teammate Jacoby Windmon was officially credited with forcing the turnover.) During the visitors' fifth drive, he met Zip quarterback DJ Irons at the line of scrimmage to prevent what might have been an explosive play.
From Tucker's vantage point, Brooks is getting better by the day.
"We have confidence in him to go in the game and get the job done and make plays, be physical and knock the ball off of people and play fast," Tucker said.
Tucker also wants other players on the team — young players, or veterans who haven't had as many snaps as they'd like — to look at Brooks for inspiration.
"We're not going to recruit you to come here if we're not certain that you can do it, that you have the potential to be able to get the job done," Tucker said. "We're not bringing guys here to do them a favor. You have to actually believe in yourself, take the coaching and compete to get on the field. And he's done that."
Easier said than done, of course. Tucker praised Brooks' ambition, noting the 6-foot, 215-pound defensive back yearns for competition. To work. To learn and to grow.
He's also the latest illustration, Tucker said, that talent can be found anywhere — provided you're willing to look hard enough.
"There are a lot of guys in the NFL, they come from these smaller schools. There are players all over the place," he said. "Guys come from small schools, and sometimes that's not an indication of whether a guy can or can't do it. You've just to look at the individual skillset of that guy."
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Dangerous work
Whenever his playing career ends, be it at MSU or a professional league, Brooks said he very may well return to the family logging business. As one of 11 children, family is paramount.
"I got a lot of cousins as well," he said, "so I got a nice, big family on both sides, my mom and my dad."
Brooks laid out how the business operates.
"It's commercial logging, so a wood buyer, they offer a price for a landowner's wood on a certain amount of acres," he said. "And then they hire us to go in and clear cut the land or thin the land. Then we take the woods to the mills."
They cut down the trees and load them onto trucks. Chainsaws come in handy, Brooks said, when a pesky tree needs more trimming to meet the standards of highway safety departments in various states.
He's worked in every aspect of the business, too.
He started by writing tickets.
"When the truck drivers go to the mill, they get the ticket with the weight and the tonnage on there," he said. "So they bring it back, I'll write all that down and keep that in order."
He handled some of the aforementioned trimming. And as he got older, he began to use other equipment. One being a wood skidder.
"It's what pulls the trees from the woods," he said. "So the cutter cuts the trees, the skidder pulls them to the loader and then the loader loads them on the truck."
Make no mistake — it's dangerous work.
"(I saw nothing happen) personally, but we had a couple of guys working for us who were like missing a finger or two, or a leg," Brooks said. "So they're like, 'Be careful.' They made sure to look out for me out there, make sure I didn't do nothing to harm myself."
His background meant Tucker's "Keep chopping" mantra hit close to home.
"For sure," he said, a smile widening across his face as he acknowledged he also got a kick out of the Paul Bunyan Trophy, annually awarded to the winner of the Michigan State/Michigan game.
Yet as much as he loves the family business, that's on the back burner for now.
His sights are set on building off the present.
"I think I've been pretty good (this season)," Brooks said. "I know there is a lot of room where I can still get better. So I'll (watch) the tape, come back next week, practice, focus on what I need to correct and go from there."
Contact Ryan Black at rblack@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU football: Safety Kendell Brooks had winding road to join Spartans
