CRAIG SLOCUM JR

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Change PageFaith, family, and football are three words used by countless teams and coaches across the country as pillars in a football player’s life. For Trojan senior kicker Brooks Buce those three words are something he has always lived by and used to get him through the worst of times and see him through his best. If there’s one thing many people may not know about Buce, it’s that he wasn’t always a kicker; he played multiple positions and was a lacrosse and baseball player in high school. But it was in football that Buce found himself in a scary situation after breaking his back. However, Buce was not to be deterred so easily. Instead of leaving the game and pursuing something else, Buce found what he is best at; kicking. “I can’t remember how it happened, Buce said. “I was in a game, and I got hit some way and found out that I broke my back. The doctors basically told me I shouldn’t play anymore, but I couldn’t accept that, so I started kicking. I enjoyed it and thought I was pretty good, so it stuck.” Even when on the field at the Vet for the Trojans, Buce still feels the effects of the injury. “It’s just something I had to overcome,” Buce said. “It still bothers me every once in a while, but there’s some stuff that I can do to get around it and keep the pain from really flaring up. I just focus on my job on the field and kicking, doing whatever I can to help the team win.” Football wasn’t the only thing that got him to overcome his injury; his family was there for him at that moment, just as they always had been. Buce has always been close with his brothers and parents, Doug and Kristi, as they have supported him every inch of the way. They were the ones who pushed him to continue to fight and not let his injury be a setback. “My parents have invested a lot of their time to make me better,” Buce said. “Travelling every weekend to take me to camps and official visits really meant a lot to me. But it wasn’t just my parents. My whole family has supported and believed in me, from my grandparents to my brothers. They’re always there to pick me up whenever I’m feeling down or anything, reminding me I need to pick my head up and keep going.” That family bond allows Buce to become closer to his faith. However, being a full-time student about to graduate in December and a football player, it can sometimes be hard for the Johns Creek, Ga. native to devote time to his faith. “Faith is a big part of who I am,” Buce said. “Finding the time to devote to my faith can be difficult at times, but my parents are always there to help me and direct me down the path I’m looking for.” Buce’s faith is now a part of his pre-game routine, as, before every game, he listens to the song Oceans by the worship collective Hillsong United to calm himself and get him ready for the game ahead. “That’s when I focus more on my breathing,” Buce said. “I go out there, and I try just to block out all the noise, block out all the distractions, and focus on what I’ve been trained to do my whole life, which is bang it through the post.” As for what is next for Buce after football and getting his degree in interdisciplinary studies from Troy in December, he wants to take time to himself. After that, he hopes to start his career in real estate and construction, and making connections is something he hopes to continue. But for now, you can find Buce at the Vet doing what he does best; kicking the football.

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Change PageTroy Football has a rich history of walk-ons becoming star players. As a result, there is a display in the football building littered with names of players who began their career paying their own way to go to school and play football before earning a scholarship – Tyler Roberts, Evan McKissack, Carlton Martial, Blace Brown and Hunter Reese, to name just a few of the recent additions. Another name that will for sure make that board is Craig Slocum. “It was a blessing to be able to earn a scholarship,” Slocum said. “Seeing all those players on the board every day when you come into the building made a big impact on me. Coming in at the same time with Carlton and seeing everything that he has achieved, it just made me work harder. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I was a walk-on at Troy; it shows everyone out there that they can do it too.” Slocum missed a chunk of his senior season at Union County High School after suffering an injury that caused some of the FBS schools talking to him to back off a little. He still was productive enough to earn allmetro honors and become the team’s defensive back of the year, but an FBS scholarship didn’t follow. Slocum still made some visits to Troy, especially with his cousin Bryan Holmes a wide receiver on the Troy squad from 2012-15. Despite the injury, current Troy assistant coach Bam Hardmon and former head coach Neal Brown still believed in Slocum’s abilities and offered him a preferred walk-on spot. “I gambled on myself,” Slocum said of deciding to take a walk-on opportunity at Troy instead of a scholarship at an FCS or Division II school. “No disrespect to those other schools, but I felt with my work ethic and the hard work that I put in, that I could play at the Division I level.” The gamble paid off in the fall of 2020 when Slocum earned a scholarship during preseason camp. He made the move immediately pay off for the coaching staff as he was named to the Pro Football Focus National Team of the Week thanks to an overall 91.5, an interception and three tackles in the season opener at Middle Tennessee. The path to Troy and college football, in general, was never always a given for Slocum, who made what he calls a life-changing decision his freshman year of high school after a normal childhood. “My mom and dad were very supportive while I was growing up,” Slocum said. “They divorced towards the end of my high school years, which made it tougher, but they were both very supportive of everything I did.” Slocum went to a prospect camp the summer before his freshman year of high school, where an NFL player dramatically impacted his future. He started going to church with his high school coach, Coach Brian Griffis, who became a significant mentor in his life. “The NFL player told us at the camp that every decision we make right now will catch up with us later in life,” Slocum said. “He told us that college coaches ask a lot of questions before handing out scholarships, and that really affected my mindset and really made me turn around my attitude, and I tried to be more helpful around the school as well.” What’s next for Slocum after football? “I want to go into coaching; I want to coach at the college level and be a defensive back coach,” he said. “The DB coaches have a lot of swag. When I first got here, Coach (Al) Pogue had that swag about him; he was a big influence on me wanting to be a coach, on how he came to work every day with his energy.”