Saints commemorate Myers’ 1st sports love

One day Anthony Myers and his older brother, Nico, came home from Body Zone carrying pamphlets. They wanted to learn how to skate.

This came as a surprise to Ed Myers, a former football and basketball player who’d never spent a minute on the ice.

Dad agreed to let his boys, then 5 and 7, give it a shot. They woke up on Saturday mornings and braved the winter chill for the 5:30 a.m. program. That’s how Anthony Myers, football star, found his first sports love: hockey.

“The hardest part was getting them into the locker room and getting both of them suited up,” Ed Myers said with a smile sneaking across his face. “Getting them buttoned and the skates tied. I remember a couple moments of frustration. But those are just great memories.”

Berks Catholic’s hockey team, for which Anthony Myers was once captain, retired his famous No. 17 before the final regular season game Friday night at Body Zone Friday night.

It was a chance to gather and celebrate the life of Myers, whose year-long fight against brain cancer sparked national headlines. Myers died last month.

Berks Catholic junior Jacob Schmeck was Myers’ classmate since kindergarten and his hockey teammate for almost as long.

Schmeck paused and reflected for about 20 seconds when asked to share his funniest moment with his friend. As he flipped through his mental catalog, he realized there wasn’t one story. There were all the stories.

“Whenever you were around him, he was always cracking jokes,” Schmeck said. “It was never boring. He was always smiling. There were so many moments. It’s hard to pick one.”

Myers was a defenseman who was talented enough to play travel. He didn’t because it was difficult for a family with three kids to navigate the tough schedule. Soon football surpassed hockey as the sport Myers planned to make his future.

There was still Berks Catholic’s team, the only one in the EPSHL that doesn’t combine with another school. Although the Saints lost far more games than they won, that never deterred Myers.

“Even in the toughest moments in sports, the kid always had a positive attitude,” BC coach Jeff Wertz said. “It wears off on all the other kids. It’s tough not having him around because you lose that. But we’re going to have the memory of that forever. He touched all of our lives.”

Wertz said Myers asked if he could pull teammates aside during practice and help them work on skills they were having trouble mastering. He was essentially a player-coach.

Myers was a naturally gifted athlete. He could have picked any sport and thrived. It just so happened he saw that pamphlet and enjoyed the thrill of moving fast on the ice.

“He excelled at everything he did,” Schmeck said. “Even with all the sports going on, he was always top of the class. He never slacked off at anything.”

Alec Rivera, a Berks Catholic graduate and former teammate, remembered when Myers returned to football practice after learning he had Stage 3 glioblastoma in October 2018.

Myers was the one lightening the mood. He was lifting spirits.

“He wasn’t like everyone else,” Rivera said. “He made

people feel special. Even though he was going through a rough time, he still cared about other people.”

Ed Myers, during his son’s valiant fight to live and the immediate aftermath of his death, kept hearing stories. So many stories.

Anthony invited kids he didn’t know well to sit together at the lunch table. He befriended new people in class to make them feel welcome. He worked to get his less talented hockey teammates their first goal.

One reason Myers’ illness resonated so strongly is people loved him long before he was sick.

“We watched Anthony every single day live life in a certain way,” Ed Myers said. “That wasn’t something that we were able to manufacture. That was something

from Day 1 of his diagnosis. He was victorious simply because of the way he could accept circumstances and deal with them.”

Ed Myers, wearing a black cap with a gold 17, put his son’s fight into four words. Hope. Struggle. Strength. Victory. That fourth word is hard to define when confronted with the inexplicable cruelty of a kid facing cancer.

Myers used his final year to start Team 17 Strong and the Anthony Myers Movement to help others dealing with medical difficulties. Those 17 Strong T-shirts are ubiquitous. They pop up at sporting events across the county, even when Berks Catholic isn’t involved.

“We hope that good things will come out of this,” Ed Myers said. “They already have. We call them

silver linings. When something this horrific occurs, what’s the silver lining? What’s something positive that can be taken from it?”

Rivera and his family made their final visit to see Myers a few weeks before he died. He was at home and in hospice care.

Rivera talked to his friend and Myers, who could no longer speak, squeezed Rivera’s hand.

“We went to say goodbye and to tell him we miss him and we love him,” Rivera said. “Just to see him one last time brought closure to me in some way. To know he was up there, safe and not suffering.”

Ed Myers has handled this tragic turn, and the steady flow of hugs, handshakes and well-wishes, with unflinching grace. He

BEN HASTY — READING EAGLE

Berks Catholic’s Mason Norotsky, holding a No. 17Anthony Myers jersey, and Jacob Schmeck, holding a Myers banner, join their teammates in prayer Friday night at Body Zone, where they celebrated Myers’ life and retired his number.

says things about his son that can leave a stranger fighting back tears.

Sharing memories is cathartic, he said. It’s a way to cope with the pain and anger.

“He’s our hero and he’s our leader,” Ed Myers said. “He taught us how to live and he taught us how to die. That’s a very sad thing to say about a 17-year-old. But that’s reality.”

Before he had cancer, before he was a household name in Berks, before he was the NFL’s guest at the Super Bowl or scored two magical touchdowns in his final football game, Anthony Myers was revered. His memory will endure because of the way he made people feel.

That’s his silver lining. His victory.