The bond between parents and high school athletes shows in the journey of a state champion

Bryce Lowery of Roncalli High School in Indianapolis shows his joy after winning a state championship in wrestling on Feb. 18 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

The tears were different this time.

This time, they were tears of joy.

In his first three years of competing in high school, Bryce Lowery was devastated as he left the finals of the Indiana High School Athletic Association’s wrestling state championships.

After losing in the state finals each of those years—including last year when it was his only defeat of the entire season—Bryce slumped toward a back hallway where he broke down crying, knowing his dream of becoming a state champion had slipped from his grasp.

Those memories haunted the senior at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis as he prepared to walk on the mat for this year’s state championship match of the 152-pound weight class on Feb. 18 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

“I ended up losing in the quarterfinals last year,” Bryce recalled. “It was a heartbreaking loss in the last 30 seconds. I felt I let myself down and my coaches down. I never wanted to feel like that again.”

Bryce succeeded in avoiding that feeling this year, winning his state championship match to complete a perfect 43-0 record for the season.

Leaving the mat, he celebrated with his coach, Shaun Richardson, and some of his teammates before he rushed into the stands to rejoice with his family. There were hugs with his father, Nathan Lowery, and his older brothers, Blaze and Brayden. Then there was a special hug with the one person who has been his endless source of support through all the highs and lows of his wrestling career so far—his mother, Heather Haseman.

“There weren’t very many words. I could tell she had been crying,” Bryce said. “I knew she was proud of me. And she knew I was grateful for everything that she did for me these past seven years.”

The stories of high school athletes across the archdiocese are overwhelmingly intertwined with the stories of the parents who have supported their sons and daughters at every turn. And that’s been especially true for Bryce in relation to his mom.

“She did everything she could to make sure I’m in the position I am today,” he said a few days after the state finals. “She drove me anywhere I needed to be at any time I needed to be there. She made every single one of my meals—breakfast, lunch and dinner—this year. Everyone always teased me about how my mom made my food, but it’s just because she wanted to make sure that I was putting the best food in my body at all times.”

Even more, Bryce remembers the times before high school when he didn’t want to go to practice, when he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue the sport.

“She would make me go, no matter what,” he said, his words touched with love and gratitude.

His gratitude also extends to the sport of wrestling, and all the highs and lows he has experienced in the past seven years of making it a part of his life.

“I’m grateful for the ups and downs of it all,” he said. “There were points where I didn’t know if I was going to continue the sport. It’s a grueling, mentally-taxing sport. There’s a lot more than just going out there and wrestling. I’m just grateful that even stuff I didn’t want to go through, I’m glad I did it all.”

Beyond becoming a state champion, there’s been another defining part of the past year for Bryce regarding his sport.

“I found my love for wrestling again this year,” he said. “I figured out that you don’t have to kill yourself to get better at the sport. I figured out there could be a method to what you do and how you do it that doesn’t have to be horrible.”

His renewed love for wrestling has led him to receive a scholarship to continue the sport next year at Indiana University in Bloomington. Still, wrestling hasn’t been the only defining part of his past seven years. It’s also been a time when his life has been changed by his experiences at Roncalli and previously at St. Roch School in Indianapolis.

“I wasn’t raised Catholic,” he said. “I’ve always believed in God, but I wasn’t raised Catholic. I got baptized in the seventh grade. I liked going to Mass. I liked all the people who were Catholic. All the people I met who were Catholic were really strong and well-grounded. And I wanted to be part of something like that.

“I’ve loved every second I’ve had in Catholic schools. Roncalli is the best place for me. I love everybody here. I like the participation and the want for everyone to do well from every teacher and student. It’s just helped me with everything.”

Bryce has had a similar positive impact on his teammates, said Richardson, in his second year of coaching at Roncalli.

“It’s awesome when you have Bryce and other kids on the team who do really well, because then kids can see that you have to have high expectations or you’re not going to be successful,” Richardson says. “Bryce had goals, and he was willing to do the extra things to reach those goals. It’s just great having someone to set that example for other kids.”

Near the end of the conversation with Bryce, his thoughts returned to the feeling of winning a state championship, and to thoughts of his mom.

“When you lose, you think, ‘I’m never going to win it,’ ” he said. “But when you finally do it, it doesn’t seem real at first. It took me a second to realize what I did.

“All the practices I didn’t want to go to, all the practices my mom drove me to, those were the ones that helped me win that match. I just want to give a big shout-out to my mom.”
 

(If any high school student has a special story of the way a parent has influenced their high school sports career or other extracurricular activity, please share your story with John Shaughnessy at jshaughnessy@archindy.org or by mail in care of The Criterion, 1400 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN 46202.) †