Final home game time for Saints seniors to reflect on inspirational teammate
As they head out to the field Friday night to prepare for what could be their final football game at Berks Catholic seniors Jacob Collazo and Josiah Jordan will stop at the 17-yard-line, take a knee and reflect upon their years playing for the Saints.
Foremost in their minds will be a fallen teammate, No. 17, Anthony Myers, who succumbed to brain cancer as a 17-year-old late in 2019.
Anthony didn’t play a down his junior season but the impression he made on his freshmen teammates, Collazo and Jordan, and those who have followed, will be eternal.
“He’s probably the most impactful person I’ll meet in my life,” Collazo said.
When Collazo looks at the Saints’ home field he sees Myers — in his final game, just weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumor — zig-zagging downfield for an emotional touchdown run taken right out of the pages of a movie script.
“Truly amazing,” says Jordan of the stirring punt return in a 2018 playoff game against Milton Hershey.
When he’s in the weight room, soaked with sweat and exhausted, Collazo pushes himself to do one more rep because that’s what Anthony would’ve done.
“Seeing him work out (when he was sick) showed me how much work I wasn’t doing and how much I can do,” Collazo said. “It inspired me — and everybody — to be like him.”
Even after months of chemo and radiation treatments, long after his body had betrayed him, Myers would spend time in the Saints’ weight room with his teammates, lifting with his one viable arm.
“He was still showing everybody the way,” Collazo said.
“We talk about work ethic and how hard you have to work to prepare yourself to play on Fridays,” said Berks Catholic associate head coach Dave Stahler. “These kids got to see that; they saw someone who was still trying to do whatever he could to prepare his body to fight his battle.”
“For us to see the extra yard that he went, that was amazing,” said Jordan.
To Collazo and others Anthony was a hero long before he became ill and courageously battled cancer. Collazo, two years younger and a sixth-grader at Holy Guardian Angels, cherished his time on the playground with Anthony during recess each day.
Anthony wasn’t just the best ahtlete in the school but one of the best people, too, Collazo remembers.
“If somebody fell down, he’d pick them up,” Collazo said. “He would always make sure everybody was OK.”
Before he was helped onto the Saints’ field to take part in the pregame cointoss for the “Backyard Brawl” in 2019 — just weeks before his death — Anthony reminded his teammates to play hard and leave it all on the field.
“He told us to play for him, because he couldn’t,” Collazo said. “He wanted us to play to the best of our ability. That’ll always stick with me.”
Berks Catholic quarterback Will Hess is inspired daily by Anthony Myers.
Anthony’s spirit will remain with Collazo forever, both spiritually and figuratively. His massive upper right arm is covered with a tattoo honoring his fallen hero.
“I wanted something to represent him, represent his fight,” Collazo explained, “so I got this Spartan.”
The date Anthony “went to heaven,” as Collazo said, Dec. 4, 2019, is enscribed in Roman numerals across the shield.
“He was a warrior,” Collazo said. “He never gave up. Even when he fell down, when he faced all these challenges, he kept going.”
Collazo and Jordan are last of Anthony’s teammates to play football at BC. The impact he made in his short time will continue to be felt by the next generations of Saints.
“(His spirit) runs through every single one of us here,” said Jordan, “whether you played with him or you didn’t, (what he stood for) really matters to us.”
Anthony’s No. 17 is stitched into the Saints’ home field in two locations, appropriately at each 17-yard-line. In the spring a scholarship in Anthony’s honor will be awarded. No Berks Catholic football player, Stahler said, will ever wear Anthony’s number again.
The on-field marker is the most visible and emotional tribute.
“I look at it every time (I walk by),” said Collazo, “and it inspires me. If I’m not locked in as much as I should be, it reminds me of his drive, and how he would want me to play.”
