McConnell's next big adventure is coaching
STILLWATER — Each mountain lit up as if it was on fire.
As the sun set midway through 2016, the peaks filled the Wyoming skyline with bright orange. Brycen McConnell had never seen such beauty.
For months, he had trained to regain strength for a climbing adventure in Grand Teton National Park. Six months inside a dull hospital fighting for his young life had nearly broken his body. Finally, he was free. “I knew this was where I needed to be,” McConnell said. “I felt like I was in heaven on earth.”
McConnell has lived for the moment in his 23 years, but none more than the past few. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma wrecked him and changed his perception on mortality.
Now cancer free, he's lived each day like it's an adventure since his 2015 diagnosis.
McConnell has hiked up mountains. He's hiked down and back up the Grand Canyon. He's been a bartender, a worker in a miserably hot dry-cleaning business, a barista, a lifeguard and a swim instructor.
He's now a husband, a fulltime Oklahoma State student and Stillwater High School's first-year swim coach following Kurt Goebel, who began coaching at Stillwater before McConnell was born.
McConnell will return to a stage he competed in at Deer Creek High School — this time coaching a team during Friday and Saturday's Class 6A state swim meet at Edmond Schools Aquatic Center — grateful for the opportunity, but also determined to make a splash.
“It's everything,” McConnell said. “That's how every event is. I tell them whether it's high school state or the first meet of the year at Jenks when we're clearly going to lose, you have to attack it.
“To me, this is it.”
The good and bad
Shay McLain-McConnell was overwhelmed with Oklahoma State homecoming activities when Brycen called with bad news.
He thought he had strep throat. Doctors thought it was much worse. The C-word was possible.
“I told him there's no way he had a tumor,” Shay said. “He's 20 years old.”
But cancer doesn't discriminate, even by age.
Cancer was confirmed not long after. He needed surgery and treatment.
Brycen had just finished two years at Baylor.
He transferred to OSU because he missed Shay and wanted to get married.
Now, their world was upside down.
Brycen had been an amateur boxer for two years. He loved backpacking in the mountains. He loved hiking to photograph bears.
Now, he was reduced to a short run around the block every other week during chemotherapy in Oklahoma City. He had to force himself to eat, even if he wasn't hungry. He put on a brave face for Shay, family and friends.
But inside he was miserable. He wanted to be free.
In eight months, he would be.
“A lot of cool things came out of it,” Shay said. “A lot of bad things, but a lot of good things. I think that's how any hard time is characterized.”
The latest adventure
Shay had to make Brycen promise they would not stay in a tent on their honeymoon last June on a return trip to Wyoming.
Years before, they stayed in tents going up New Mexico's Wheeler Peak, a mountain standing 13,161 feet above sea level.
At the top, Shay could only declare, “I just want to get off this damn mountain.”
Brycen hasn't slowed since, climbing half a dozen 14,000-foot mountains. Each one more exciting than the last.
But Shay has still never seen Brycen as pumped
as this past summer when he was named Stillwater's new coach.
As a freshman at Deer Creek, Brycen was the lone boy on the swim team. He designed practices. As the team grew to 22 by his senior year, he still designed workouts.
Then he elected not to swim in college, but he never got far from the sport he loved. When he moved to OSU, he joined the school's swim club, becoming president.
Applying at Stillwater High last summer was natural, even with two college semesters remaining.
It was another adventure to tackle.
“I'm going to cannonball this thing,” Brycen said.