COFFEETOWN HS SPORTS

Before Austin Riley won a World Series with the Braves and made the NL All-Star team, he kicked the snot out of a football in high school.

Of course, Riley had natural baseball talent and all-around athletic skills. The Braves drafted him 41st overall in the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft.

He also played high school football on that run to the big leagues.

Austin Riley started out under center. Then he had to make a choice.

Yes, it was an easy choice. But it was a choice nonetheless. And it puts him in Coffeetown football lore to this day, even though y’all know him better for plays like this:

Austin Riley lit up when asked about his DeSoto Central High School career

Riley joined Outsider’s Marty Smith Podcast in September of 2022 and revisited his football glory days.

“I love Friday nights,” Riley said.

“My freshman and sophomore year, I quarterbacked. That’s kind of the time when baseball was getting pretty serious. I committed to Mississippi State my sophomore year. Summers were booked with baseball,” Riley said.

As talented as Austin Riley is, there was still only one of him to go around for DeSoto Central. Obviously, football had to give.

“This was about the time seven-on-seven was getting really big. I just couldn’t commit to both (sports). So I told my coach, ‘With seven-on-seven and stuff, it’s just too much.’”

That’s when Riley made a legendary decision

Instead of just hanging up his helmet and play sheet for good, Riley was all about the team.

That’s the coolest part of this story.

High school football teams rock. Baseball is fun, too. But Riley knew that was probably about to be his job for the rest of his life.

So he decided to kick it – literally – with the football team.

“There was a guy there that was fully committed to football, quarterback. So I was like, ‘Hey, I can’t commit to this, but I still want to be a part of the team,’ so I ended up just taking over my junior and senior year all of the kicking game. So I punted, kicked and did kickoff.”

Riley weighed in at 6’2″ 230 pounds when the Braves drafted him in 2015.

Imagine that mass as a kicker. DeSoto Central’s opponents are lucky Riley kicked plenty of touchbacks on the kickoff team.

Not many kickers out there can double as wedge busters. But if anyone could do it, it was Austin Riley.

Life as a high school kicker is pretty sweet, as it turns out

“It was awesome. My cousin, Keegan (James – who did go on to play baseball at Mississippi State), he was the long snapper. So we’d show up 15 minutes for the first part of practice. Go over special teams, and then get the heck out of there and go to baseball.”

Too bad he wasn’t committed to his team.

Austin Riley really could have made something of his career.