URBANA, Mo. — Look up and down a high school roster. Then look over one from the same school, only from several years ago.
Chances are the same last name will jump out.
Family lineage is as common as anything in football, and Skyline is a poster child, even as one of the newer football programs in the Ozarks. Since reaching the varsity level, a son in the Bryan family (Chad, Corey, Logan, Shawn) has played for the Tigers.
Every win, every trophy, one sibling can take some credit.
“(Shawn) will be the last Bryan to play in the program until 2028,” head coach Brandon Shelby said. "I laughed and told him that’s going to be someone else’s problem.”
Coaching each of the brothers has been far from a problem for Shelby. Every one except Chad lined up at running back, while the eldest was an all-state linebacker his senior season. Logan, the third son, racked up over 23 hundred yards and 39 touchdowns in 2012.
His younger sibling, Shawn, was in 8th grade at the time, and sheepishly admitted that he would like to be just like Logan, as much as he mouths him.
“I know they’re probably going to be pretty upset with me, but physically, (Shawn) is the most gifted of all the boys. I'm sure that'll live on for many Christmases to come in the Bryan family.”
In some ways, Shawn does provide flashbacks of his brother. Now a senior, the youngest brother finds himself as the centerpiece of Skyline’s offense. He’s responsible for 8 of the first 10 touchdowns on the season. It’s a new feeling after being flanked by the likes of Dylan Mountain, Madison Davis, and Chipper Berry during his career.
It took some getting used to, but he enjoyed the pressure on his shoulders.
"I still have some humongous shoes to fill with all those others in front of me,” he said. "It’s going to take a lot of work the rest of the year.”
The added work load is nothing for Bryan, who pushes through 5 a.m wakeup calls to finish an early job at his mowing business so that he can be at weights by 6 a.m. He takes pride in being in the game notes of every team in the Mid-Lakes Conference.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to have great leaders in our program the last five or six years,” Shelby said. "The first three or four weeks of practice, we were searching for that. I’m really proud of the way he and the other seniors took charge of that."
He also takes pride in carrying the family legacy on his back, not just in name, but in number.
Every Bryan brother has worn No. 5, as siblings can do when they go through the same athletic program. It didn’t start that way for the oldest, Chad, who had the end of his sophomore season rocked by tragic news.
His sister, Cheyenne Williams, had been hit by a car and killed. She was five years old.
“Me and her were the same age. We used to always run around at Chad's games and toss the football,” Shawn said.
That was in 2003 and she would have been a senior in high school this year. Chad missed the last game of his sophomore campaign to attend the funeral. The next year, he changed his number from 81 to 5 to honor the age of his little sister.
“Knowing the family and how close they are, if something affects Chad, it’s going to affect all of the boys,” Shelby said.
Those boys have taken that number and done plenty of memorable things, all while carrying that memory with them. This is the last season this tribute will be paid, which drives Shawn to make it the most meaningful yet.
"it's kind of scary to think this is the last year that I'll play,” he said. “But just keep getting better each week, come in, stay focused, and hopefully we'll be playing our best football in the postseason."
