School: Pennridge
Football, Winter Track, Diving, Baseball
Favorite athlete: Torii Hunter
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Playing baseball on ESPN in the Little League Mid-Atlantic Regional championship game against Preston, Md.”
Music on iPod: “I range from Motown to the Notorious B.I.G. to Mika to the Beatles. It’s all good!”
Future plans: “Play either baseball or football in college and to perform relief work in a Third World country, especially in Africa.”
Words to live by: “Pursue as much as you can in life while you’re still alive.”
One goal before turning 30: “Earn a degree in anthropology that will allow me to work around the world.”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I'm quite a jump roper. I used to jump rope for a team during my elementary years and now know many unique moves.”
Ryan Metzler is a special talent on the athletic field, but that simply makes him one of a long list of outstanding athletes.
What sets the Pennridge junior apart from the rest – to steal a phrase from baseball coach Tom Nuneviller – is the fact that he ‘gets it.’
“He knows it’s about more than winning or being first in everything,” the Rams’ coach said. “It’s about treating people the right way and allowing everyone to get a taste of success.
“He has a great attitude, and he treats people the right way. The kid gets it.”
Nuneviller speaks of the genuine attachment between Metzler and a special needs student, the late Billy Boor, who was confined to a wheel chair but kept the pitch count and helped with the scorebook at Pennridge’s home baseball games last year.
“I knew Billy before he joined baseball,” Metzler said. “It was great when I found out he was on the team, and I just got to know him real well.”
Metzler treated Boor like ‘one of the guys’ and admits he often forgot that his teammate was living with a disability.
“I would sometimes have to watch my sarcastic jokes because he wouldn’t understand them,” Metzler said. “I would treat him as if he was no different.
“We became great friends.”
That close friendship made Boor’s unexpected passing on Sept. 20, 2008, particularly difficult for Metzler to handle.
“He was a really good person, and he was straight up baseball,” Metzler said. “He loved baseball.
“He was into NASCAR, which I really don’t care for, but when we got to baseball, we could just talk back and forth. I would see him in class and the hallways, and we would go off on stuff other than baseball. He was just a funny guy – really energetic, really upbeat. That’s what I really like about him.”
It’s also what Nuneviller appreciates about Metzler.
The speedy junior not only makes all the plays in the outfield and creates havoc on the base paths, he’s also fun to be around – so much so that when Nuneviller was asked to list a ‘fun fact’ about his team in a pre-season preview he seriously considered writing Metzler’s name.
“The guys said, ‘Oh, you should have put it down,’” Nuneviller said. “He’s just a neat kid, a real likable kid.
“He always has a smile on his face, kind of goofs around in a fun way with everyone, and everybody on the team just loves him.”
Metzler, according to Nuneviller, is also ‘different,’ and in this case, that is meant as high praise. The Rams’ coach recounts a story about Metzler during the team’s pre-season trip to the Poconos this spring.
Joining the squad for Saturday afternoon’s activities was Bobby Kennedy, another young man confined to a wheel chair who also keeps stats for the baseball team.
“Soon after lunch, pick-up football games got started,” Nuneviller said. “Without blinking an eye, Ryan said, ‘Bobby’s on my team.’
“For the next 45 minutes, Ryan pushed Bobby around in his wheelchair, blitzing on every defensive play. Ryan would catch a pass, put the ball on Bobby’s lap and push him across the goal line. Ryan taught Bobby to spike the ball after he scored. Bobby had a blast.
“In this day and age, we see a lot of self-centered people - it’s about me. To see a kid go out of their way to be kind to someone a lot of people overlook – it’s neat to see Ryan do that.”
Nuneviller was hardly surprised to see Metzler take Kennedy under his wing.
“I had Ryan in phys ed class as a sophomore, and he did the same thing,” the Rams’ coach said. “He’s a very fast runner – he can flat out run, and we were playing flag football.
“A lot of times the star athletes get together with their buddies so they can dominate a gym class football game. Ryan chose the kids on his team that were not the best athletes. He chose the kind of kids that are often overlooked, and his team played the more athletic group.
“He made sure he passed the ball to kids that wouldn’t get the ball passed to them on a regular team.”
For Metzler, that kind of behavior is second nature.
“I have a wide variety of friends,” he said. “Some of the classes I take are harder, so I know some of the kids that are smarter but not as athletically gifted.
“I don’t think, ‘Oh, I’ll pick those kids.’ I just take the kids that I know. I don’t think any differently about who they are. I just know I’m going to have a good time with them. I really don’t care about winning in gym class.”
Metzler has found a way to squeeze the most out of not only his relationships with others but out of the hours in the day.
In the fall, he is a standout cornerback, running back and kick returner for the varsity football team, and his 86-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open last year’s Thanksgiving Day game against Quakertown is the kind of electrifying play fans have come to expect from Metzler.
“That’s up there with my sports memories,” he said of the kick-off return. “That was incredible.”
In the spring, Metzler is a fixture in the outfield for the baseball team, and this past winter, the talented junior, who runs winter track, found a way to add a fourth and somewhat unlikely sport to his list of athletic endeavors when he went out for the diving team.
“I never tried anything like that in my life,” he said.
Metzler admits a girlfriend had some influence in the decision to try the new sport.
“But that wasn’t the full influence,” he said. “Since diving practice was in the a.m., I talked to the track coach to see if I could keep running.
“That was kind of tough at points, but my track coach was real nice and kept me going to meets.”
Diving became a new and fascinating challenge for Metzler.
“It was a rewarding experience,” he said. “It was incredible. It worked my body in ways I never (imagined). It’s not your typical, conventional sport like baseball or football. It was completely different.
“It wasn’t a rush, it was all about the mind. At times it was like, ‘Wow, I really don’t have to work my body. I just have to tell my mind.’ It was more mentally tough than physically tough.”
Despite his inexperience, Metzler was a quick study and credits coach Adam Vance, the 1997 state diving champ at Pennridge, for his development. By the end of the season he competed in the Last Chance meet where he finished in the top 15 out of 25.
“I’m really a beginner, but I would love to do it again next year,” he said.
Metzler has always been passionate about sports, and he played them all as a youngster. He began running track in middle school and says that may have been his best sport, but once he realized he could run track in winter, Metzler opted to play baseball in the spring.
He has been a starting varsity player on both the football and baseball teams since he was a sophomore, and he admits it’s a toss-up when it comes times to choose his favorite sport. An honors student, Metzler is receiving the most interest in football and has a dream of one day playing football for an Ivy League school.
For now, he is an integral part of a baseball squad that captured the Continental Conference crown and finished third in the district with a trip to states awaiting the Rams next week.
Although Boor is no longer on the sidelines, he has not been forgotten and each time the Rams break their huddle before they take the field, they end their chant with ‘BB’ in memory of Billy Boor. They also have his initials on the back of their hats.
“It was tough when he died, it was really sad,” Metzler said. “I would see him coming out of my ninth period class, and we would talk about next year’s baseball season. He’d say, ‘I can’t wait. We’re going to go far.’
“We would talk about football. He would ask how my football games would go. It was tough.”
With a year of high school remaining, Metzler is adhering to his own simple philosophy on life.
“Put as much as you can into it,” he said. “High school is going to end so quickly. If you can look back and say you did everything you could and enjoyed doing it – live with no regrets.
“There’s such a focus on winning championships nowadays. When you think back 30 years from now, you’re going to think of the bonds you made instead of the things you won.”
And Metzler has bonded with countless people who have crossed his path, ensuring many special memories.
