By Caroline Makauskas, Lexington Herald-Leader
— July 24, 2022
Wilson Berry and Courtney Stewart have welcomed their first son, Leo, to the world. Berry will propose in a few short months, midway through his redshirt-freshman campaign as a punter for Kentucky football. The couple have decided that Stewart, soon to be a Berry herself, will quit her job as an elementary school teacher in favor of staying home to raise their son.
“By the time you factor in the cost of gas and daycare,” Courtney Berry said, “it didn’t really seem worth it.”
— December 2024
Josh Braun and his wife, Azucena, have made the decision to continue his football career at the University of Kentucky after previous Southeastern Conference stops at Florida and Arkansas.
It’ll mark their second big move since 2023, but the Florida native’s NFL dreams are still alive, with one season of remaining eligibility and a Bachelor of Arts in Classical and Ancient Studies and a Master of Business Administration earned in pursuit of them.
“With the transfer portal, it’s definitely a challenge,” Azucena Braun said. “You’re most likely going to move.”
— Spring 2025
Taylor Ebbs and Cole Lanter are apart from one another after mutually deciding their athletic careers needed a change of scenery. They’re engaged to be married in June, and they can’t wait to be reunited. But first, sacrifices must be made with their best interests in mind.
“Obviously, we were apart, and that was something we weren’t really necessarily ready for,” Taylor Lanter said.
Though by happenstance these couples have found themselves connected to Kentucky football at the same time, it’s more than likely at least one of them, if not all, will leave Lexington at some point.
But the University of Kentucky and its football team — and the city surrounding them — will remain an unforgettable chapter in the lives of Courtney Berry, Azucena Braun and Taylor Lanter, the three wives of Kentucky football players, regardless of where their marriage or the sport might take them.
While their husbands clock hours upon hours in class, at the football facility and on the road, Braun, Berry and Lanter are navigating the benefits and challenges of being married to a collegiate football player while continuing to grow and change themselves.
It’s led them all to foundational years in Lexington. Even when the on-the-field results weren’t there.
Meet the Brauns
It took six SEC games for Kentucky football to take its first conference win.
Azucena understands, then, if Josh — whose team hasn’t won more than seven games in a single season since his freshman campaign at Florida in 2020 — is in a bad mood because of on-field disappointments.
She even told him after Kentucky’s heartbreaking 16-13 overtime loss to Texas she’d “get it” if he wasn’t cheery when he came home; Josh in part blamed himself for the team’s narrow defeat.
“That’s on the field,” Josh said. “It’s not my wife’s fault that I wasn’t able to do my job well enough to win.”
Kentucky had tied that game at 13-all on a 45-yard field goal from Jacob Kauwe with 9 seconds to play in regulation. UK had lost the coin toss, but forced the Longhorns to defend the end of the field capped by the student section.
The Wildcats were 25 yards from the end zone with a deep desire to dig Kentucky out of its four-game losing streak and earn its first home conference win since 2023.
Kentucky opened the overtime with a 22-yard Cutter Boley pass to Kendrick Law that set up a first-and-goal at the 3-yard line. But Texas stuffed four attempts at the goal line — dominating UK’s “Big Blue Wall” at the line of scrimmage — and went on to make a 45-yard field goal on its ensuing possession to win.
“Heartbreaking loss right there,” Josh said. “Six inches from the goal line to win it all. To be honest, it was heartbreaking. But that’s on the field, you know?”
During the season, Sunday is his only day off to be with Azucena. To bring that disappointment home, Josh said, would be “doing a disservice to her and all that she has done for me.”
So instead, they sat around the firepit, too tired to talk, with his parents and their 2-year-old Dalmation, Dodie, into the early hours of Sunday morning.
UK offensive line coach Eric Wolford was effusive in his praise of Josh, a coach’s kid who he joked is “kind of like a 30-year-old,” as a leader.
“Great teammate, great leader,” Wolford said. “He’s been through so many things. He’s been through the ups and downs, and he’s the guy that motivates the group, speaks up when he needs to, leads ‘em by example.”
To Azucena, Josh’s ability to lead is fueled by his own caring heart, and she said empathy is as important to their relationship as it is to his position on any team.
“It’s hard understanding the mental and physical toll that they’re taking as they go through football,” Azucena said. “I think that’s the hard part. If you don’t understand that, it can be difficult.”
Work-life balance can be challenging, especially when one’s “work” is rooted in physical labor, and protecting the man leading the offense. Azucena said “not taking things personally” is a significant aspect of her supporting role.
“If he comes home and he’s exhausted and he just wants to go straight to bed, I can’t take that personally,” Azucena said. “… It’s just a lot to put on a person, and, honestly, he’s been so good about balancing life and football that it really has gotten easier over the years.
Josh said he does his best to “compartmentalize” his life.
In the classroom, he’s dedicated to his graduate studies. With the Wildcats, he’s a veteran on a leadership-packed offensive line tasked with protecting — and teaching — Kentucky’s redshirt freshman quarterback.
“When I’m home, I’m her husband,” Josh said. “And I fill that role.”
Josh said as a girlfriend, then a fiancée and now a wife, Azucena has never faltered in her support for him. He has worked just as hard to be a rock for her, doing his best to make the most of each stop and continuing to lift her up through the struggles of frequent upheaval.
If you were to ask him, he’d tell you that support started years ago, on the first day of their freshman year of high school, not long after she confused him for a senior. It was at Suwannee High School in Live Oak, Florida, — which boasts fewer than 8,000 people as the county seat — that the offensive lineman first met Azucena.
“I met my husband on the very first day of freshman year,” Azucena Braun said. “It was the last period of the day, and I remember being so exhausted of hearing the syllabus. We had assigned seats, and I sat across from him. And immediately, I thought, ‘What is this huge senior doing in a freshman science class?’ ”
While their science teacher droned on about the syllabus, then-Azucena Gonzalez found herself getting annoyed by who she’d assumed was “this dumb, huge senior” taking up so much space under the desk.
“His feet are so big,” Azucena said. “And they would always be under my desk area. That would really bug me, but I would never say anything. I was shy. He was outgoing, the complete opposite.”
While everybody waited for the final bell to ring, the teacher asked her how she pronounced her first name.
“Az-oo-zanna.”
Suddenly, Josh shouted and jumped to his feet.
He towered over her. Then he shouted.
“Oh my gosh! That is the coolest name I’ve ever heard!”
“He asked me a bunch of questions about my background and my name,” Azucena said, “and I was weirded out, super embarrassed. But everyone in class, at that moment, knew he had a crush on me, and from there, we just kept talking. We immediately fell in love and started dating.”
The moment was the first of many that demonstrated Azucena’s favorite thing about Josh.
“He’s so unapologetically himself,” Azucena said. “He’s just so confident in who he is, and I admire that authenticity.”
Throughout six years of dating, the Brauns’ connection grew stronger as they each became the other’s best friend. She supported Josh as he worked toward becoming a Division I football player, and he supported her in her high school soccer career.
“When I first met her,” Josh said, “she was one of the first people I knew who truly cared for other people and wanted the best for them, even if it wasn’t the best for herself.”
They were named to the homecoming court as seniors in 2019, and they stayed together as Josh embarked upon his first SEC stop at Florida in the spring.
In January 2022, before his final season with the Gators — during which he earned a redshirt after playing just two games — Josh proposed to Azucena, and they were married June 18, five months later.
Curiosity and a deep passion for learning link the pair and ensure their conversations never cease.
“He is the smartest person I have ever met,” Azucena said definitively.
Despite growing up in the United States, Azucena said coming from a Mexican household is a massive part of who she is; it’s “completely different,” she said, from how her husband grew up, but their bond is only strengthened by all they’ve taught each other since that first day of high school.
Azucena laughed when she talked about how it took her “so long to try” an American staple as simple as bread and butter. Josh had to learn familial differences in their cultures, like the concept of padrinos (godparents), who, per tradition are a collection of loved ones who contribute in one way or another to a couple’s wedding day.
“You would have a godparent for your rings,” Azucena explained. “And you’d have godparents to help with the venue and the food. And so we would visit different people from our community, both Hispanic and American families, that all pitched in to have this huge wedding. And it was beautiful. It was perfect.”
Azucena and Josh have always connected through their similarities and differences. Sharing in each other’s culture and committing to truly know one another and build, per Azucena, “a marriage centered in Christ,” have brought blessings galore — not to mention a tremendous amount of fun.
It’s for those reasons the ups and downs of college football haven’t shaken the Brauns, regardless of distance or transfer decisions; Josh opted to spend his redshirt junior season with the Razorbacks in Fayetteville, Ark., where he earned 2023 Second-Team All-SEC honors and started in each of Arkansas’ 12 games last season.
After graduating, he transferred to Kentucky for his COVID year, the final season of his college career.
“It was during that third season that we went through some adversity,” Josh said. “And I had to lean on her, and she was very understanding, very supportive when I said, ‘Hey, it’s looking like I’m gonna have to transfer.’ And she was like, ‘All right, where are we going?’ ”
That curiosity pushes the Brauns to handle any adversity in tandem; a true teammate there to embrace the unknown with you. Even if one person’s dreams are — at least while life is so football-centric — put on pause.
“Time and time again, she’s put me and my goals ahead of her own goals,” Josh said. “As a husband, I want to be able to provide for her, provide a life for her that she can be proud of, and I want her to chase her dreams and accomplish them.”
“It’s about true partnership,” Azucena said. “And after these three years, we’ve moved around a lot, we’ve faced a lot of challenges. It goes a lot deeper than that. It’s about love and sacrifice, and we’re constantly serving one another so that we can both grow.”
Meet the Berrys
Courtney Berry, née Stewart, has always had a penchant for cookies.
So it was magical, then, when she discovered Insomnia Cookies in Lexington not long after moving from her hometown of Paducah to her dorm at UK.
“I’m obsessed with cookies,” Courtney said. “… Being from a small town, nothing like (Insomnia Cookies) exists there. And they deliver to you! So my freshman year, I got cookies delivered to my dorm every day.”
For three years, Insomnia — and cookies in general — played a role in Courtney’s Kentucky experience. But, in February 2021 during her senior year of college, the dessert would affect her life in a rather unexpected way.
Wilson Berry, now a senior punter for the Wildcats, had just arrived at UK in January and was required to quarantine in a hotel before beginning any of his freshman activities. The Ballarat, Victoria, native played Australian Rules Football with ProKick Australia, where he spent three years in the Victorian Football league after graduating from high school.
Wilson’s first taste of freedom after quarantining, coincidentally, led him to a townhouse behind the Cookout on South Broadway, where Courtney and her roommates were throwing a house party.
It was there, during his first no-restrictions weekend as a UK student, that Wilson met his future wife.
It was his “funny and outspoken” nature, Courtney said, that drew her to him.
“I remember the night that we met,” Courtney said. “I started all the way across the couch from him, but, as the night went on, I kept on scooting closer and closer. I just wanted to be near him and hear everything that he had to say.”
Their conversation flowed easily throughout the rest of the party as the night continued around them — and the future couple made its way to the kitchen for a late-night snack; Courtney had made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for their guests.
A cookie traditionalist, Courtney had milk available for anyone who wanted it.
Nobody turned their nose up at the free dessert, but adding milk to the mix wasn’t for everybody.
“Who wants milk when they’re drunk?” Courtney said. “You know, that’s kind of gross.”
But that night, Wilson took Courtney up on her offer for milk to accompany the cookies, and it’s been an inside joke ever since.
Did any onlookers think it was odd?
“Probably,” Courtney said. “I didn’t notice.”
Almost immediately she found herself thinking, “I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with him,” and Wilson was on the same page. In fact, the punter couldn’t help himself years later when he bought Courtney’s ring; he told her within the same breath as his greeting one day when she came home from work.
It’s that deep joy that powers them through difficult decisions, when compromise needs to happen for the betterment of their family, their relationship and one another.
Courtney graduated in 2021 with her a degree in elementary education before accepting a teaching position in Clark County, where she taught for one year.
Meanwhile, Wilson missed the majority of his freshman campaign due to a back injury but still posted four punts for a total of 148 yards. It was a busy time for the couple. Courtney became pregnant with their first son, Leo, and the couple welcomed him in July 2022.
After that, they decided it would make the most sense for Courtney to stay home.
“With Wilson’s football, he was making more than I did a month as a teacher,” Courtney said. “So I was like, ‘Well, I just want to stay home with Leo if I can.’ ”
The pair got married in May 2023, and soon after commemorated their love story with matching wrist tattoos — a gallon of milk for Wilson, and a chocolate chip cookie for Courtney — permanent reminders that, wherever either is, they’re the perfect pairing.
There are certain advantages to being the child of a Kentucky football player, especially when you’re the only one. Growing up around the sport, taking pictures with dad on media day, eating post-practice dinner at the facility on family day every week and attending nearly every home game; Leo was only six weeks old when he first watched his dad take the field.
While Courtney loves being a mother, adding a second child to the mix — their son, Gus, was born this spring — means she’s outnumbered during football season, and Wilson doesn’t get to spend as much time with his wife or children as he would like.
“And now that our oldest is kind of aware of what’s going on and like, ‘Oh, Dad’s not home as much,’ it’s pretty hard on him, but we get through it,” Courtney said.
Sometimes family — most of whom are stateside — will come in and help on game days, but, sometimes, like when the high heat that beat down onto Kroger Field for the team’s season-opening win against Toledo, it’s best to just watch on TV at home.
“(Leo) was like, ‘Mommy, I want to go play with him!’ ” Courtney said. “And went and got his helmet and his gloves and his football. He just thinks he’s part of the boys. It’s been fun. That’s a pretty unique childhood that he gets to be a part of.”
The difficulties and the sadness of missing Wilson when he’s away with the Wildcats, however hard they may be, never pull focus from the power of Team Berry.
“We’re best friends,” Courtney said. “I think that’s the biggest thing for me and him is that we’ve always been super close best friends. We’re a team. We make all our decisions together. We do everything together.”
Meet the Lanters
Taylor Lanter, née Ebbs, credits her time at UK with introducing her to her faith, which she said is now the most important thing in her life.
Finding her faith, Taylor said, shifted her perspective on sports, happiness, love and the value of prioritizing her own needs.
“Honestly, if I didn’t come to Kentucky, I don’t know if I would’ve met Jesus,” she said. “I didn’t really know who he was.”
The trajectory of her life changed, she said, when she decided to attend a Bible study during her first year in Lexington.
Taylor, a freshman on the Kentucky softball team in 2021-22, was invited with all the other first-year softball players by Jaci Babbs — a UK outfielder and a senior that season — to a teen Bible study. Taylor found herself surprised by how much she’d enjoyed it, noting how different it felt from what she’d previously felt toward church while growing up in Oregon.
“Genuine people with genuine happiness and genuine joy,” Lanter said. “That was cool. And I had definitely seen my heart change in a way… life is more beautiful, and more fun, with (Jesus) in it.”
It was the ”genuine joy,” that helped the Keizer, Oregon, native navigate a sea of changes to her own life as an SEC softball player — and connected her to the man she’d ultimately marry.
Cole Lanter, a 2020 and 2021 KHSAA state champion with Boyle County football, chose to accept a preferred walk-on spot at UK in lieu of scholarship offers from Eastern Kentucky and Murray State.
The lifelong Wildcat fan knew in his heart that he wanted to play for the blue and white, and trusted the gut feeling that told him it was supposed to be his next chapter. Which is how Cole — whom Taylor described as “extremely confident in his identity of Jesus” — found himself attending UK’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings.
The pair first met at March 2023 FCA meeting, where they had just one conversation, and did not meet again until a few months later.
But Cole and his friends would go catch Kentucky softball games throughout the spring. After the initial meeting in March, Cole was quick to tell his friends — including his best friend, former UK quarterback Deuce Hogan — that he was going to marry Taylor.
When the pair “instantly clicked,” Taylor said, upon their second meeting in June they found their “friends meshed even more.” Not unlike a movie, their friends had heard enough of Cole and Taylor speaking about the other, and their newfound, combined friend group set them up.
Shortly after Cole and Taylor officially got together, she said Hogan let it slip that Cole “said he’s going to marry you at your first home game of your junior year.”
“I was like, ‘No way,’ ” Taylor said.
That summer quickly became one for the books for the friend group, full of trips to the pool, playing beach volleyball and pickleball, going to the softball facility or the football facility and running routes.
But it was a magical season for Taylor and Cole.
“We spent a lot of time together within the first couple weeks of meeting each other,” Taylor said. “And, obviously, we were attracted to each other, but we really learned about each other’s hearts first. We had a lot of conversations about Jesus, about our life, how we want our lives to look like, what we’re passionate about. And then it all just kind of formed.”
Taylor was drawn to the way Cole held himself, to how he approached his sport and his friends and family.
“He had this amazing confidence to him,” Taylor said. “But it wasn’t like a cocky confidence. He knew who he was, he knew what he wanted.”
Taylor, the younger sister of two collegiate wrestlers and a college baseball player and the daughter of two collegiate athletes, believes if you can play any level of college sports, “you can get through anything in life.”
She didn’t necessarily need to end up with an athlete, but she did know an athlete would possess traits she was looking for in a partner.
“I know what it’s like to dedicate yourself to something and to sacrifice so much,” Taylor said. “Everybody has a different life and a different story, but I know what athletes had to go through.”
Adversity like the shoulder injury that kept her out of the start of her junior campaign. Adversity like the feeling telling her it was time for a new chapter at the end of the 2024 season.
The 2019 Oregon Gatorade Softball Player of the Year made 119 starts in 146 games with the Wildcats over the course of three seasons before making the difficult decision to spend her senior season in 2025 at Missouri, where she made 53 starts in 54 appearances as the Tigers’ designated player.
“When I went on my visit to Mizzou, they were very nose to the grindstone,” Taylor said. “You work very hard, you earn what you get. That was the culture of the team, and that was something I was striving for. Kentucky had it, but it just was a little different for me, experience-wise. And there were just some changes that I needed in my life for that, and Mizzou gave it to me, and it wasn’t necessarily softball-related. It was more of just my life and what I felt was needed to develop into a better human being. And that’s that’s exactly what I got.”
While Taylor spent the 2025 softball season at Missouri, Cole was also searching for what he needed to continue growing, and had a brief stint with the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs before transferring back to UK as a walk-on.
Even though Cole’s journey pulled him back to Lexington, Taylor said he never once tried to dissuade her from following her path. On the contrary, he encouraged her to follow her heart.
“He was very supportive in that decision,” Taylor said. “Obviously, he knew everything about my life, and he just wanted me to be happy, and so whatever that looked like for me was what he was going to support.”
It was that mutual support that pushed them through it, even in times when the distance felt overwhelming. Taylor said being apart “was something we weren’t really necessarily ready for.”
“But we learned that we were more connected in so many different ways,” Taylor said. “And we learned how to show love to each other in so many different ways. And most importantly, we learned how to put ourselves first so we could be the best partners for each other…it just proved to us that we have to put ourselves first to be able to get through whatever in life we will get through.”
On June 28, 2025, upon the conclusion of Taylor’s collegiate softball career, Taylor and Cole were married in Stanford on a day she called “very perfect,” saying it means more to her than anything.
“I think anybody that has been around us can attest to this, like, who we are around each other is extremely special,” Taylor said. “…I wanted to surround myself with somebody that was going to make me better every day and not settle for less and vice versa.”
Together — for whatever
Some find community in a team. Others, in a safe space. A teammate. A best friend. A co-parent. A faith partner. Someone to remind you to put yourself first.
All of the above. None of the above. The definitions of love and partnership are ever-changing, even for those who’ve decided that marriage is a step in their journey.
Not every college football player is a husband, and not every woman under the age of 27 is married, but Josh and Azucena Braun, Wilson and Courtney Berry and Cole and Taylor Lanter would all tell you they could not pursue their dreams — or be themselves — without their spouses.
It’s those connections, and the unending mutual support, that will carry them through whatever comes next. Because, in truth, none of these couples necessarily know exactly what to expect when their time with Kentucky football comes to an end.
“I just hope he is safe and healthy,” Azucena said. “I really just want him to succeed, and I’m doing everything I can to help him pursue his dream. And I know he is.”
“I feel like a lot of people look at us and think, ‘How in the world are you doing this with two kids?’ ” Courtney said. “It’s bittersweet. I came to Lexington when I was 18 years old. I’ve grown up and found myself here, and I’ve obviously met my husband and had my kids here, so I think this place will always be home. But I’m excited to see what’s ahead, too.”
“I wake up every morning next to a man that loves every imperfection that I have,” Taylor said. “He wakes up next to a woman that loves every imperfection that he has. And I know that from this day, like every single day forward, as long as like God willing, that we’re together and alive and healthy, we will always push each other to be better, be closer to God and just be better humans.”
What makes these challenges worth it for the marriages of Kentucky football is the constant pursuit of mutual support through adversity and joy; though it’s atypical to meet a married college football player, a sentiment from Azucena rings true across all kinds of marriages.
“Marriage is just putting in the effort every single day to love with intention,” Azucena said.
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Herald-Leader columnist Mark Story, football writer Jon Hale and high school sports reporter Jared Peck contributed to this story.
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