Here’s a story to tug at the heartstrings of all those kids who have been told they weren’t tall enough or big enough to play sports. TIM MYERS had a record to be proud of himself.
Sean Myers, 5-foot-8 and 165 pounds, is a star receiver with the Chapman University football team, an NCAA Division III school in Orange, Calif. To make the story all the better, he is the son of Tim Myers, who grew up on South Buckeye Street and was a standout athlete at Iola High, where he was graduated in 1974, and Allen Community College.
Sean, 20, “has been a terrific athlete from a very young age,” said Tim in an email interview. “He was always one of the shorter kids but it never stopped him from excelling against bigger and older competition.”
As a youth he played baseball, soccer and basketball. In third and fourth grades, he played National Junior Basketball and one season averaged 24 points, 13 rebounds and 10 steals a game — a rare triple-double.
Sean didn’t take up football until his freshman year at Fountain Valley High School, along with basketball where he made all-league as a point guard his junior and senior years.
He started five games in football as a sophomore, and then was a fixture at cornerback and wide receiver as a junior and senior, often playing with and against players headed to Division I programs. He led the high school team in receptions and earned all-league recognition both years.
After his senior year, he was selected to play for the South squad in the Orange County North-South All-Star Game. He made two spectacular plays and was named the game’s offensive MVP.
Sean is a business major, with minors in economics with an emphasis on finance and real estate, at Chapman. He studied at Grenoble, France, School of Management the spring semester of his sophomore year, and started at guard on the French college’s basketball team.
After paying his dues as a freshman, Sean started this season and last at wide receiver for Chapman. He also is the team’s PAT and field goal holder. He led the team last season in touchdown catches with five and had 32 catches in the undefeated team’s first nine games this year. Sean also threw a 32-yard TD pass on a wide receiver reverse play, which may be found on YouTube.
“He is quick and elusive and just catches almost everything thrown to him,” said his father. “He has some of the softest hands you’ve ever seen on a receiver. I think if he was 6-foot and 195 pounds, you’d be watching him play on Saturdays in a big-time program.
“It goes without saying Anne (his mother) and I are incredibly proud of him as a person, student and athlete.”
After graduating from IHS, he went to Allen Community College on a basketball scholarship. He played one year before joining the Marine Corps, where he was a radio repairman for four years.
Following his discharge, he worked for a computer company in Oklahoma City, went back to college and graduated from Oklahoma University in 1987 with a finance degree.
He then moved to Southern California and has worked for technology-related companies since.
Tim met wife Anne during an interview at one of the companies. She is from Huron, Ohio. They have been married since 1991 and have lived in Fountain Valley, Calif., for 17 years. Sean is their only child.
Son of former Iolan a California college standout
