Lifting the Limits: Senior Henderson Brant commits to college for powerlifting

Then-freshman Henderson Brant walked into the Matt Ross weight room for the first time, staring mindlessly at the squat racks and guys obviously taking steroids benching twice his body weight. Intimidated and overwhelmed, but he stayed and got the lift in. The smell of sweat overpowered his nose as he loaded 250 pounds onto the deadlift bar. 

Four years later, he walks through the William Jewell College athletic center in Liberty, MO on his tour for his powerlifting scholarship. His nose is now filled with the scent of the oversized bucket of smelling salts, preparing to deadlift 405 pounds with the rest of the William Jewell Powerlifting team. 

“Getting paid [by scholarships] to lift was always the dream,” said Brant. “I’m excited to start that next stage of life and it’s a very welcoming team so I’m looking forward to being a part of that.”

Brant started lifting weights for baseball as part of his training, but after an arm injury forced him to quit playing, he began taking lifting more seriously. He soon transitioned from lifting only during baseball training to lifting for bodybuilding.

Brant then started a fitness page — @hendersonbrant_ — where he would post form tips and meals or workouts from that day that kept him motivated on his lifting journey. This also allowed him to share his advice to his followers.

Brant’s former baseball training coach who’s also William Jewell’s powerlifting coach reached out to him about an opportunity to join the team on a scholarship. After filling out the online application, Brant got a scholarship for $3000 a year.

William Jewell is one of nine colleges in the U.S. with a varsity powerlifting team, making it one of the few schools to give scholarships for the sport, according to Brant.

“Being varsity just means [the college] gives out scholarships, the rest [of the college powerlifting teams] are just like club activities,” said Brant.

While William Jewell wasn’t originally on his list for college, he had wanted to stay in the area so the 45-minute drive was perfect for him. On top of that, Brant’s brother and East alumni Will Brant is enrolled there and his father is an alumni of the college. 

“My brother was the most excited since he was the one who told me to enroll in the powerlifting team,” said Brant. “We’re also really excited to be on campus together next year.”

After commiting to William Jewell in November, Brant switched from bodybuilding based goals to powerlifting based goals. This included focusing more on compound movements like bench press, deadlift and squat since that will be what he performs in meets. The change forced him to switch out some of his workouts, like hack squats to regular squats, but once the scholarship came he had no regrets about switching.

“I’m down to try anything,” Brant said. “I’ve been lifting heavy basically since freshman year so it wasn’t a hard switch.”