An avid soccer player into his teen years, Caden Noonkester’s unlikely rise as NC State University’s starting punter on the football team is as surprising to him as it is to anyone.
Hardworking and personable, Noonkester earned his bachelor’s degree this summer in crop and soil sciences with a concentration in agronomy. He is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a concentration in agricultural sales, innovation and consulting.
We caught up with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alum to learn about his goals for the 2024 season — which include beating the University of North Carolina and claiming the top spot in the Atlantic Coast Conference — and what comes next.
“I don’t want to compare myself to anybody else. I just want to be the best me that I can be on and off the field,” says Noonkester, who grew up in Waxhaw, a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. “So whatever that looks like, that’s what I want to accomplish this season.”
How did you fall into playing football?
I grew up playing soccer. I actually thought I was going to play soccer at NC State. But one day in high school, I was playing kickball in class and the gym teacher, who was our football coach, saw me kicking the ball and knew my background with soccer and asked me if I’d come out and try kicking for football. So, I went out and tried it and just had an interest in it and a skill set for it.
First, I played on the junior varsity team, but I was also still playing soccer, so I don’t really count it. I count my junior year in high school as my first real year of playing. That’s when I actually fully committed to just football. I started pretty late in terms of playing football, which kind of adds to the uniqueness of my story.
Did you plan to play football at NC State?
My goal was to graduate from NC State University. My intention was never to come here and play. It was a dream to come here and play, but in my mind, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go and still do football and try it.’ I ended up getting on the team as a walk-on. I had no scholarship and not really any intention to ever get playing time.
But you didn’t waste the opportunity.
I worked really hard. You work at practice as a team, but it was also the behind-the-scenes stuff that I was doing to give myself the ability to catch up just from the time that I missed starting so late in high school that made a difference.
About halfway through the 2022 season, I ended up having to play after the starter got hurt. I was blown away myself at how I performed. I really did not see that coming at all. And then, from that day forward, I realized the dream was no longer to one day play here. The dream was to be a starter and make a name for myself and help the team.
Why did you decide to major in crop and soil sciences?
I originally planned to major in fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology because I’ve always been an outdoorsy kid. I grew up going on walks in the woods and I went fishing, so it was always something I was interested in. But then I realized that field really focused on regulations and violations and that didn’t seem like a good fit for me.
In agronomy, you have the answers and you’re able to work with farmers and growers to help them find the solution that they need. And so, I figured I’d rather be the guy that people want to see come out to the farm and help them.
What kind of hands-on experiences did you have while earning your undergraduate degree?
This summer I worked with Dr. Ralph Dewey on a project doing mitochondrial gene editing to lower the nicotine concentration in tobacco plants. The hope is to try to reduce the amount of people who are addicted to cigarettes. This is kind of personal for me because I had a grandfather who had cancer from cigarettes.
I did a lot of work in the field where I was pulling weeds and taking samples. Then in the lab I was able to run PCRs (polymerase chain reaction sequencing) and do gene DNA extraction. We did some high throughput for the extraction with liquid nitrogen, which was really cool.
In the greenhouse part of my job was prepping the experiment. I think it ended up being over a thousand little wells — so I had to prep those with the soil and throw the seeds on there to get sproutings. Then we would take a pinhole-size punch of a leaf sample from all those different varieties and put them in test tubes for the gene DNA extraction. It was such a unique experience that I’ve never really had before. The ability for me to fully participate in the lab was awesome.
I also did an internship last summer (2023) with Southern States in Tarboro doing sales and agronomy. It was helpful just being able to see things that I learned about in the classroom in real life. Also, Dr. Bob Patterson’s Crop Science Lab was really great, just being able to go out in the field and go on all these field trips and do experiments: there was a lot of emphasis on trying to learn your future with ag and what you want to do.
How will your master’s degree complement your career goals?
I’ve really had a great appreciation for growers throughout my undergraduate program and getting to meet a lot of them through my internships, field trips and football games. I feel like with my outgoing nature and ability to talk to people, I’d really thrive with an agricultural sales or agronomy sales position someday. There’s this whole ag community that’s been supporting me, and I’ve met a lot of people signing autographs and meeting with fans. That’s been huge and I want to be part of the ag community and be able to help the people who are helping me now.
What’s ahead for you?
Right now the dream is to pursue a professional football career. But you are always one bad tryout or one injury or one bad game away from football coming to an end. And so, my plan B is to have a great education from NC State, great internship experiences and great connections so that if football doesn’t work out, I’m not starting over or backing up — I’m just falling forward into my next plan.
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