An Optimistic Sky | The Story of Bryan William Stewart

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SPORTS

 

 

A good portion of Bryan’s life involved sports.  I am a strong proponent of

the idea that sports, particularly team sports can be a character builder.

 

 

Soccer was Bryan's first sport. I don't recall the name of the team right

now but I'll try to dig that up. Bryan was about five years old when he

played on that team. I do remember the T-ball team that Bryan played for

they were the 29 palms quails. I've got a photo, hopefully I can find it of

him in his uniform I still have the parents T-shirt, it is a blue T-shirt

with white writing with a picture of the quails, of course right? 

 

 

 

Abundant Life Football Team

 

Another childhood adventure was the Abundant Life football team. Bryan

always was athletically gifted but because of his very gracious character,

he did not appear to be aggressive. Of course I think his graciousness and

his loving kindness served him much better than an aggressive type A

personality.  I recall that we were doing tackling drills one day and as I

said to him, he tackled the one boy so hard that the boy’s football pants

came off! 

 

 

I'm certain that Bryan really enjoyed sports, I don't think that football

with his niche. Again he was very athletically gifted and genetically very

well put together, but he was not an aggressive or mean spirited individual.

 

I think the point can be argued but when you talk about combat sports, and

for the sake of this conversation we’ll call football combat sports I think

that you benefit from having a mean streak or an aggressive personality. 

 

MCCES basketball at CLNC

 

Bryan enjoyed sports but really loved basketball. He loved both playing and watching basketball and the culture of basketball.  I've told him multiple times that he really could've been a sports announcer. 

 

He was very well-versed in both the rules of the game, and the culture of

basketball particularly pro basketball. We went to a few Hornets turned

Pelicans games at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. We also went to a basketball game one time that was really cool it was the ‘And One’ league.  It was a combination, as I see it of the street basketball and trick

basketball.  

 

 

He had two true loves when it came to sports, the NBA as a whole and the LSU Tigers.  I can (and will) talk ad nauseam about LSU later in the book. As a

fan, he was particularly fond of Shaq long before attending LSU.  That is

fortuitous because he of course he ended up being a very proud LSU student and graduate.

 

 

We used to watch games together and make fun of Mark Jackson (momma, there goes that man) and hands down, man down.  We also were amused at how disgruntled Jeff Van Gundy was when he would talk about ‘if I were

coach’…

 

PIX OF JERSY COLLECTION, SHAQ STATUE UNVEILING

 

Bryan play basketball at Camp LeJeune and in Twentynine Palms California in the youth leagues. He also played in high school both in Japan and in Belle

Chase.

 

He loved being a part of the Kubasaki Dragons, it’s almost comical how much he wore the Kubasaki Dragons t-shirt. His normal attire (pre Larrielle) was that t-shirt and those blue basketball shorts.  

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PIX OF KUB T-SHIRT/BLUE SHORTS

 

 Bryan was naturally built for basketball.  He was tall and thin. In addition to the natural build, he had a very developable skillset. I speculate that if he had and pursued the opportunity to play basketball in college that he could have easily played at a medium sized college, even LSU.

 

BCHS Cardinals

Talk about James Wright, the moderate success of BB, baseball was king, football was queen...

 

 

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