PLATTEVILLE — Former Black Hawk football star Matt Kent is about to be immortalized at his college alma mater. Kent, a wide receiver and 2005 University of Wisconsin-Platteville graduate, is joining teammate Tom Stetzer (2005), James Anderson (1980) and cross country and track runner Ryan Kleimenhagen in the schools’ athletic Hall of Fame. 

Stetzer is a Black Falls graduate and shared the field with Kent from 2001-03. Anderson is a Neenah native and former linebacker on the Pioneers’ football team, while Kleimenhagen hails from Oak Creek and was a 13-time All-American as a cross country and track and field runner and broke 11 school records during his career.

“I was stunned a little bit at first,” Kent said. “With everything else going right now, with COVID, it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

Due to COVID-19, the date and location of the induction ceremony will be announced at a later time.

The UW-Platteville Athletic Hall of Fame was established in 1972 by the Alumni Association to honor standout student-athletes, coaches and contributors. This year’s class brings total membership to 219 individual honorees. 

In order to be nominated for consideration into the Hall of Fame, individuals must meet at least one of the following criteria: documented outstanding performance in intercollegiate athletics while a student at UW-Platteville with graduation date 15 or more years previous to the current year, documented outstanding past or current coaching performance at UW-Platteville, or contributed to UW-Platteville intercollegiate athletics through service or as a team.

Switching positions a success

A running back in Black Hawk’s Wing T offense, Kent switched to wide receiver with the Pioneers, which ran a spread offense.

“I didn’t do a lot of research into their offense. The spread was totally different than the Wing T. That first year was a little tough,” Kent said. “I didn’t play a lot early on. The biggest thing was that my coach changed me to wide receiver in about Week 9. That next year is when I took off.”

His high school coach, Dennis Murphy, credit’s Kent’s success with working hard to continually get better, and by waiting for his opportunity in Platteville — much like what he did in high school.

“There are a lot of players that could play college football, but there’s not many that would wait for their turn,” Murphy said. “It takes a lot of time and energy to stick it out. Matt was willing to pay his dues.”

His 30 career touchdown receptions sits at number two in the Pioneer record books, and his 186 career points is fifth-best in UW-Platteville history.

Kent was named to the third team of the 2002 NCAA Division III Football Gazette All-America Team, was a three-time first-team All-WIAC selection and voted 2002 team MVP and 2003 offensive MVP.

Kent gave a lot of his credit to Stetzer, his quarterback and really close friend.

“It’s a cool thing to go in with your friend. It’s probably fitting that Tom and I go in together,” Kent said of the Hall of Fame. “He definitely made me a better wide receiver. I don’t know that I helped him as much as he helped me. He was great.”

Stetzer, a Black Falls graduate who now lives in Middleton, rewrote the UW-Platteville history books in the spread offense, setting 15 school records and six WIAC records from 2001-03. 

Kent was one of the most productive wide receivers to play football at UW-Platteville. He still holds the record for career receiving yards with 2,958 as well as the single game receiving yards record when he tallied 288 yards and four touchdowns on 13 catches in a 36-33 loss to Whitewater on Oct. 19, 2002.

“There are some games I think about more often — the 288-yard game against Whitewater is definitely one,” Kent said. “I think of some tough games, too, like the Augustana game we lost on a 57-yard field goal.”

He had 55 receptions for 996 yards and eight touchdowns during the 2001 season, then came back the following season and topped those numbers with 65 receptions for 1,139 yards and 13 touchdowns during the 2002 campaign.  

Kent’s 1,139 yards in 2002 ranks third-best all-time, and his 996 receiving yards in 2001 — which included a 206-yard game against La Crosse and a 217-yard game against UW-Oshkosh — is sixth-best for UW-Platteville.

‘Hidden gem’

When Kent was a sophomore, Murphy wasn’t sure what the future held for the running back. During a crucial game in the middle of the season, Kent’s number was called.

“We had a good running back in Adam Hawkinson, but we were behind in the fourth quarter and Adam had been thrown out for extracurriculars,” said Murphy, former Black Hawk head coach and member of the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Kent entered the game and immediately made an impact.

“The defense changed their alignment, and we noticed that,” Murphy said. The Warriors, running the Wing T, gave the ball to Kent, who ran up the gut of the line and sprinted past the defense for a 45-yard touchdown. “We knew we had a hidden gem right then.”

Murphy praised his former running back, saying that one intangible thing Kent had was speed. “You can’t coach speed. He had the ability to stop and go and accelerate on a dime.”

Not only was he fast, but Kent also was a hard worker willing to do whatever it took to help his team win.

“He’s a rural boy. I would say that about 99% of rural kids are not afraid of work,” Murphy said. “He had that desire to work hard. He always wanted to be better than he was the day before. We ran the Wing T, and that means you have to get the other backs involved and be willing to block in order for the team to be successful. You get a lot of football players that excel at one facet of the game, and I look at Matt the other way. That’s a special ingredient.”

Kent was a two-time first-team All-Conference selection at running back, rushing for more than 3,000 yards and 50 touchdowns for the Warriors during a three-year playoff run from 1997-99. Black Hawk went 24-11 during his three varsity seasons, including six playoff victories and a state runner-up finish.

He ran for more than 1,300 yards and 26 touchdowns for the Warriors during the WIAA Division 6 runner-up season in 1998, and then came back to rush for 1,458 yards and 23 TDs in 1999 while leading the Warriors to Level 3 of the playoffs.

Regional colleges started lining up for Kent’s services after high school. He said he was interested in Winona State, but that the distance was a little too far from home. He credits his mother for helping him pick UW-Platteville.

“I was exhausted with recruiting,” he said. “(Platteville) made sense to me. I’ve always been a bit of a homebody.”

After college

Kent, the son of Steve and Sharon Kent of Gratiot, graduated from UW-Platteville in 2005 with an industrial technology management and building construction management degree, and is currently a carpenter for Madison Metropolitan School District.

Kent, who now lives in Oregon, said he owned his own business for a few years, but likes his job with the school district, especially now that he has three children — a 9-year-old daughter and twin 6-year-old boys. 

After graduating from UW-Platteville, Kent and Stetzer teamed up again as members of the Evansville BlueCats, a professional indoor football team based in Evansville, Indiana. 

Kent 33 catches for 288 yards and four touchdowns in eight games with the BlueCats during their 2005 season. Stetzer moved on to play further in Reading, Pennsylvania. 

Kent said that about 10-15 of his former teammates stay in touch. He said that for the past 20 years the group gets together during the winter to head up to Chippewa Falls to go ice fishing. 

He thought he was hanging up his cleats for good, but five years later had an offer to play for the Madison indoor football team. By then he was in his late 20s, and after a few practices he gave up the sport for good.

Kent still tunes in to football games on Saturdays and Sundays, though he understands he watches the games differently from other fans. As a student of the game, his viewing is more nuanced.

“When you play in college and semipro, the majority of the time you watch it in a different perspective. You break down a lot of the plays as they are developing,” Kent said.

— Thomas Gunnell contributed to this story