Football highlights of Braylon Isom in action are featured on social media. One video says the Heritage High standout pass receiver, honored as Saginaw County’s top 2023 prep player, “continues his record-breaking season with more ridiculous catches.”
Passes snared with one hand sometimes are seen in the pros, even during a few college contests, but this is highly uncommon among high schoolers.
And get this: Braylon recalls the first time ever doing this was in third grade, doing a flag football game. He couldn’t palm the ball at that age, of course, but he could pull it into his body.
“It was flying over my head, and I dove for it,” he recalls.
Right or left hand? Braylon pauses a split second before he answers that this was with his right. After all, he has used both during his four varsity seasons, which concluded with Heritage’s first district crown since the turn of the millennium.
The son of Dean and Carrie Isom had his eye on the state record for pass receiving yards when the season started.
Then he discovered another benchmark, career touchdowns, and he decided he also could catch up with that one.
Isom achieved both, with 3,830 yards and 52 TDs. Imagine the young man catching passes and crossing goal lines all the way along Center Road from Heritage to White Pine Middle, more than 2 miles of gridiron glory.
He has achieved an array of honors, including the fifth annual Harry Hawkins Award for Saginaw County’s top prep football player, the local equivalent of college’s Heisman Trophy, presented by the downtown Saginaw Club along with MLive Media Group. Hawkins was a 1922 Arthur Hill grad who went on to the University of Michigan, where he became the first local All-American player, and returned to town in civic leadership.
Staying close to home
Isom is headed on scholarship to Miami of Ohio, which competes in the Mid-American Conference with Central, Eastern and Western Michigan universities, along with Toledo and Ball State and others. After he racked up half of his career touchdowns during a stellar senior season, he’s sticking with his decision from last spring. He likes everything from the campus in Oxford, a college small town between Cincinnati and Dayton, to the curriculum for his career in sports management.
Isom said in his announcement: “I have truly enjoyed the Saginaw Township Community Schools experience, from academics to athletics. I have made so many great friends and relationships with teachers and coaches through the years. I had the opportunity to enroll early in January at Miami of Ohio. Instead, I chose to finish out my senior year with all my friends. I thank STCS for all they have done for me as a student athlete.”
His grade-point average is 3.395.
It also helps that the RedHawks are a traditional power in football, known as the “Cradle of Coaches,” including U-M’s Bo Schembechler and Ohio State’s Woody Hayes among alumni. A youth basketball trainer, Eugene Seals Jr., recommended his alma mater. So did Lauren Seals, one of Braylon’s school teachers. Local sports followers also will note Miami of Ohio as the final work place for Charlie Coles, the legendary coach. And so Saginaw High has an influence.
Plus Miami passes the ball more than 20 times per game, and so Isom will have his chances, similar to within the Heritage offense. The RedHawks on Dec. 2 claimed the Mid-American Conference crown with a 23-14 playoff win over Toledo.
At 6-foot-3, he still is nimble enough for point guard duties on the Heritage basketball squad. His ability to run after the catch, usually in stride with both hands, has roots from his middle school years, both playing basketball and being deployed in football as a running back at White Pine.
First-year Coach Justin Thelen and freshman Braylon Isom both arrived at Heritage in 2020 and were curtailed by covid at the start, or else the state record numbers would be even higher. When Thelen suggested that many top runners are shorter fireplugs, and that taller guys like Braylon fit better as pass receivers, the transformation took place.
Other teen athletes may have protested the switch of positions to receiver instead of runner, especially from a newcomer coach, but Isom embraced it.
“Coach Thelen turned around our program,” he says, as he describes a feeling of “family” within the team. “I knew I could always catch the ball, so I was all for it.”
As someone who shares credit with teammates, Isom is most proud that the team gradually rebuilt during his time, achieving its first district crown in November when he added three more TDs in a victory over Midland Dow, resulting in the “ridiculous catches” video.
Coincidence for namesake
Going back to flag football years, U-M fans have peppered Dean and Carrie with inquiries because a now-40-year-old Detroiter, future pro Braylon Edwards, was setting pass-catch records for the Wolverines back before their son was born.
Yes, it’s true. The name is no accident. Mom and Dad both had been young athletes, Dean in track and field at Saginaw High and the former Carrie Schluckebier at Bridgeport High in softball. And so with Carrie expecting a child that ultrasound had deemed a boy, it was only natural the two would relax and watch a Michigan game on TV. Braylon Edwards was in a star’s role, and the name appealed to them, so that was their choice, simple as that.
Who would have dreamed that their child would favor not only in the same sport, but in the same position on the field? He also follows his dad’s footsteps with the Heritage track team as his third sport, and he followed mom’s in summer rec baseball.
The Heritage High juggernaut with Isom and quarterback Ethan Mason reached full force this fall. A talking point with family and friends is that Braylon broke the state record with 47, and then a researcher found out he actually needed 49, so he just went ahead and broke that standard also, with three more to spare.
Mason joined Isom for Saginaw Valley Conference honors, along with teammates Ty Robertson, Ethan Kraatz, Wyatt Vondette, DJ Burns, Joshua Walker, Carter Collins and Jace Sullivan.
More than football
Half of the Hawkins award is based on achievements in the field of play, while half incorporates community service and classroom grades.
Even before the family learned the criteria, Isom was volunteering at Hemmeter and then at Sherwood elementaries, where he has attended classrooms to read to children, and then joined them for some recess exercise. He has taken part in youth sports camps for both football and basketball, four summers in a row. His main protege is younger sister Brooklynn, in eighth grade, who enjoys “all the sports,” just like he did at that age. On the day of our interview, he was preparing to join mom and dad at one of her volleyball games at White Pine. His four older siblings also are sports-minded.
When he describes “sports management,” this could range from teaching and phys ed to becoming an agent for athletes, even while maintaining his own NFL hopes.
He summarizes, “It could be anything, as long as it keeps me around sports.”
