Meet the Board.

Kierston Willoby

Kierston Willoby is an Oklahoma-based entrepreneur, technology and business consultant, community builder, sports fundraiser, and Co-Founder and Head of Operations of The Players Collective.

Willoby's path into youth athlete development did not begin with a title in sports. It began as the parent of a kid who was both athletically and academically gifted — and the realization that the family simply did not have the financial means to get Willoby's child to the camps and exposure opportunities that talent had earned, especially while the child was young.

Over the years, Willoby experienced firsthand how quickly the cost of developing an athlete can exceed what most people see from the stands. Equipment, uniforms, team and tournament fees, specialized training, camps, showcases, travel, hotels, transportation, recruiting opportunities, and countless other expenses can determine which opportunities a young athlete is actually able to pursue.

Willoby learned that talent alone does not always create access.

A young person can possess the ability, work ethic, academic preparation, and desire to compete at a higher level and still miss an important opportunity because the family cannot afford the experience, does not know the right people, does not understand the recruiting process, or simply does not know the opportunity exists.

For Willoby, that became more than a personal challenge.

It became a problem worth helping solve for other families.

Seeing the Gap from the Inside

Willoby’s understanding of the access problem started before Willoby was a sports parent. Willoby enrolled at the University of Oklahoma in August 2006. A high school athlete whose playing career was ended by a severe spine injury, Willoby came to OU on academic standing — and stayed deeply plugged into the athlete ecosystem, tutoring football and men’s basketball players in essay writing and general academics through 2006 and 2007.

That is also where Willoby met Branndon Braxton, then an OU offensive lineman. The friendship, built on a shared love of football, has lasted ever since.

Those years showed Willoby something most fans never see: what a full athletic scholarship did not cover in 2006. Tuition, room, board, and books were paid — but the meal plan covered the athletic cafeteria during its hours, not the regular dining halls that stayed open longer. On weekends and evenings, players with nothing to fall back on sometimes simply went without food. Gas, transportation, trips home, and the ordinary costs of being a college student came out of pockets that were already empty.

And these were not marginal players. Willoby was tutoring and befriending some of the most talented athletes in the country — future professionals, on both the men’s and women’s sides — who had come to OU on raw ability from homes where several siblings shared a room, where some didn’t have a bed of their own, where families had nothing. Willoby knew women’s track, softball, and basketball players facing the same gaps, some of whom went on to the WNBA. Phenomenal talent, empty cupboards: that was the environment.

The point is structural, not personal, and it is told that way on purpose: no names, no stories about individual players. The system covered the big bills and left the rest to young people who often had nothing to fall back on.

Nearly twenty years later, after three years of shaping the idea together, Willoby and Braxton founded The Players Collective to do something about the gap they both saw — from opposite sides of it.

From Sports Parent to Program Builder

When Willoby’s child entered Deer Creek High School in 2023, Willoby’s involvement in athletics expanded beyond supporting Willoby’s own child.

Willoby began working directly with athletic programs and school leadership to address the financial and organizational needs surrounding student-athletes.

During the first two years at Deer Creek, Willoby helped support golf, softball, and girls basketball through fundraising, resource development, sponsorship efforts, booster infrastructure, and athletic planning.

Willoby estimates approximately $139,000 in direct athletic resources facilitated during those two years—approximately $25,000 or less supporting golf equipment, uniforms, tournaments, and related needs; approximately $30,000 supporting softball; and approximately $84,000 supporting girls basketball.

But Willoby’s work went beyond raising money.

Willoby helped establish and strengthen functional nonprofit booster organizations capable of creating more sustainable support for athletic programs through business sponsorships, community relationships, fundraising, and eligible charitable contributions.

The objective was not simply to pay today’s bill.

It was to leave programs with better infrastructure for supporting tomorrow’s athletes.

Athletic Facilities and Capital Development

Willoby also worked with Deer Creek athletic and district leadership, including the athletic director and superintendent, to help identify athletic needs and develop requests that could move through school purchasing, budgeting, and longer-term capital-planning processes.

That work included significant needs within the softball program, including planning for a new locker-room facility and substantial spectator shade structures.

The experience gave Willoby direct exposure to a side of scholastic athletics that extends far beyond fundraising: understanding how an athletic need becomes an institutional request and how that request can eventually become a funded facility improvement.

Some results take years.

A notable example came in 2026, after Willoby’s child had transferred from Deer Creek, when the district approved approximately $273,409.80 for softball and baseball bleacher shade structures—a facility need connected to the earlier planning work in which Willoby had participated.

That experience reinforced a principle that continues to influence Willoby’s work today:

Supporting athletes also means building the infrastructure around them.

Continuing the Work at Putnam City North

Willoby’s child transferred to Putnam City North High School in July 2025, immediately before junior year.

Willoby brought the experience developed at Deer Creek into the new school community, becoming involved with girls basketball and softball through fundraising, resource development, community and business support, and booster infrastructure.

Since becoming involved at PC North, Willoby estimates approximately $30,000 in additional resources facilitated supporting those programs.

Across the two school communities, Willoby estimates approximately $169,000 in direct scholastic-athletics fundraising and program resources facilitated, separate from larger district-funded capital improvements.

More important than the aggregate number is what those years taught Willoby.

Willoby has seen athletics from the perspective of the parent writing the check, the athlete needing the opportunity, the booster organization trying to raise money, the business deciding whether to sponsor a program, the coach identifying a need, and the school system determining how larger investments can be funded.

That perspective now shapes Willoby’s work with The Players Collective.

A Commitment to Women’s Sports—and Athlete Access More Broadly

Much of Willoby’s direct work in athletics has centered on girls and women’s sports, particularly basketball and softball.

That experience gave Willoby firsthand exposure to questions involving resources, facilities, fundraising, visibility, sponsorship, recruiting, and access.

Women’s sports remain particularly important to Willoby.

But the larger lesson Willoby took from those experiences applies to athletes regardless of gender:

Potential and access are not the same thing.

A gifted athlete may need specialized coaching.

A family may need help understanding recruiting.

An athlete may need exposure outside the relationships available through their school.

A parent may know an opportunity could benefit their child but simply be unable to absorb another camp, hotel, tournament, equipment, or travel expense.

Those barriers can exist in softball.

They can exist in basketball.

They can exist in football.

And they can affect talented athletes in virtually every sport.

A Longer History of Building Access

Willoby’s commitment to creating opportunity did not begin with athletics.

In 2014, Willoby created the Oklahoma Black Owned Business Directory and ShopBlackOK, building a free resource intended to make Black-owned businesses throughout Oklahoma easier for consumers to discover and support.

Instead of simply encouraging people to support Black-owned businesses, Willoby created infrastructure that made doing so easier.

Several years later, Willoby authored Resources for Felons in Oklahoma: Help with Employment, Housing, and Federal Bonding, organizing practical information for Oklahomans attempting to navigate employment, housing, and other barriers after involvement with the criminal justice system.

The populations were completely different.

The instinct was the same:

When information, resources, or connections stand between people and opportunity, make the path easier to navigate.

That history is important to understanding The Players Collective.

The organization is not Willoby’s first community-access initiative.

It is the latest evolution of work Willoby has been doing in different forms for more than a decade.

Professional Experience Behind the Mission

Professionally, Willoby is the Principal Consultant of Willoby Consulting LLC, where Willoby’s work spans technology, business operations, organizational strategy, program leadership, business development, and building the systems and processes organizations need to execute complex initiatives.

That professional background gives Willoby a different role within the sports ecosystem.

Willoby does not present as a coach or professional athlete.

Willoby’s expertise is in building the organization around the mission.

Fundraising needs structure.

Donor relationships need stewardship.

Programs need operating models.

Money needs accountability.

Partnerships need management.

Families need communication.

Applications need processes.

Athlete assistance needs objective criteria.

Sponsors need value.

Organizations need governance.

And a nonprofit that intends to serve athletes for years cannot operate like an informal parent group.

That is the experience Willoby brings to The Players Collective.

The Players Collective

In 2026, after three years of developing the idea together, Willoby and Branndon Braxton co-founded The Players Collective, Inc.

Braxton serves as President and Co-Founder, while Willoby serves as Co-Founder and Treasurer.

Their partnership combines different but complementary strengths.

Braxton’s leadership centers heavily on athlete programming, sports relationships, partnerships, and athlete development.

Willoby’s role focuses on building the operational, fundraising, organizational, and financial infrastructure necessary to make those programs sustainable.

Together, they are building The Players Collective around a broader question:

What happens when a talented athlete has the ability to move forward but lacks one of the resources necessary to get there?

The answer may be development.

It may be mentorship.

It may be information.

It may be exposure.

It may be a relationship.

It may be financial assistance.

The Collective is being designed to help connect those pieces.

Why Begin With Football Linemen?

The organization’s initial pilot focuses on offensive and defensive football linemen.

For Willoby, beginning with football despite Willoby’s extensive background supporting women’s athletics is intentional.

The Players Collective is not supposed to exist only for sports familiar to its founders or their children.

It is supposed to respond to athlete need.

Offensive and defensive linemen occupy highly specialized positions requiring technical development, strength, footwork, leverage, hand placement, movement, repetition, position-specific coaching, and opportunities to be evaluated.

Access to that specialized development and exposure is not equal.

The lineman initiative therefore gives The Players Collective a defined population through which to build, test, and refine its athlete-development model.

It is the first program.

It is not the limit of the mission.

Why The Players Collective Exists

The Players Collective ultimately grew from a problem Willoby understands personally.

For years, the question was:

How do I make sure my child — athletically and academically gifted — gets the opportunities that talent has earned, when I simply don’t have the financial means to get my child to the camps and exposure my child needs?

After years of fundraising, building booster organizations, working with athletic programs, developing business relationships, helping advocate for facilities, and navigating youth sports as a single parent, the question became:

How do we help make sure other parents don’t have to figure all of this out alone?

That is where Willoby’s personal experience, sports experience, community work, and professional career converge.

Willoby understands what it means to be the parent trying to find the money.

Willoby understands what it means to help a team raise the money.

Willoby understands how to build an organization capable of receiving and managing support.

Willoby understands how businesses and community partners can participate.

Willoby understands that some needs require fundraising while others require institutional advocacy.

And Willoby understands that sometimes the most important resource is simply knowing where to go, who to call, or what opportunity exists.

Willoby’s objective is not to remove every obstacle from an athlete’s path.

It is to prevent avoidable barriers unrelated to talent, effort, character, or potential from unnecessarily determining how far that athlete can go.

The Through Line

In 2014, Willoby built a resource connecting consumers with Black-owned businesses.

In 2018, Willoby created a resource connecting people seeking second chances with employment and housing information.

Beginning in 2023, Willoby began applying organizational and fundraising abilities directly to scholastic athletics.

Across Deer Creek and Putnam City North, Willoby has helped facilitate approximately $169,000 in direct athletic resources, helped develop sustainable booster infrastructure, worked with businesses and community supporters, and participated in institutional planning for athletic facility improvements.

As a single parent, Willoby has simultaneously spent years navigating the financial and logistical realities of developing a multi-sport athlete firsthand.

And in 2026, Willoby and Branndon Braxton took the next step:

They created an organization designed to build some of that infrastructure for other athletes and families.

The subject has changed throughout Willoby’s life.

The underlying instinct has not.