Nick Wright played in his final football game of the season on the night of Nov. 14 and rode the team bus back from Southaven back to Vicksburg. The very next day, less than 24 hours after Warren Central was eliminated from the Class 6A playoffs, Wright swapped his football cleats for soccer boots, notching 75 minutes while scoring a goal and dishing out an assist to lead the Vikings in a 3-0 rout of George County.

Rest is a rarely used word for a two-sport star like Wright, who has played an integral part in the revitalization of both Warren Central’s football and soccer teams as he finishes out his junior season.

The placekicker/forward might have the most-used feet in Warren County, and he’s not just using them to shuffle between practices.

“They’re two different sports but I use my feet in both,” said Wright, who will lead the Vikings against crosstown rival Vicksburg High tonight at Memorial Stadium. “Playing soccer and growing up around soccer has helped me be a good kicker in football, because I’m used to kicking a soccer ball just like a football. The transition is really nice because football season ends and then I transition right into soccer season.”

Wright slipped seamlessly into soccer from football, not even stopping long enough to catch his breath between bus rides. After booting kickoffs and drilling field goals on the gridiron during the fall, he turned in his jersey in and picked up a soccer kit.

“He likes football, but he loves soccer,” Warren Central soccer coach Greg Head said. “I know when we’re doing all the preseason, and that hurt us not having Nick for the preseason those first few games while he was still in football, but the football team needed him. He’s so good at football.”

Wright was 9-of-10 on field goals this football season and 37-of-40 on PATs. But soccer is his first love, with football acting as a passionate mistress.

“I’ve been playing it since I was about 3 years old, and I grew up in a family that just played soccer,” Wright said. “I love it.”

Wright is most comfortable when playing the version of football where you can’t use your hands. So far this season he has eight goals and seven assists as WC jumped out to an 8-3 record punctuated by a 3-0 win over Northwest Rankin. He scored all three goals.

“We expect a lot out of Nick this year because Nick was one of our leading scorers last year. He’s big and strong, and he’s like Jozy Altidore of the USA team,” Head said. “He’s big and strong and he can hold the ball until we can get there. We’re a defensive-minded team and we need somebody like him who can hold it for us to push up and then lay it off, and then usually he gets it back.”

If there’s another field goal kicker in Mississippi being compared to a U.S. soccer superstar, it would be a surprise. Wright draws the comparison without a second thought from the coach who has seen him develop into a star in both sports.

Head knows how important he is to the makeup of the football team as well, and both he and football coach Josh Morgan balance Wright’s talents to get the most out of his feet. It’s a symbiotic relationship that helps both teams and, in the end, Wright, too.

“(Football) also helps my footwork, and then soccer helps with my footwork and foot strength in football so I don’t lose the kicking aspect in football and I don’t lose the kicking aspect of soccer,” Wright said. “They kind of help each other.”