Soccer, Wrestling, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Wayne Simmonds
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Upper Moreland in lacrosse on their Senior Night during my sophomore year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time during a middle school wrestling match, I shook my opponent’s hand right before we were beginning, and he said to me, “Please don’t hurt me” and everyone on my team heard him. It was really funny.
Music on iPod: I listen to pretty much everything…Jay-Z to Dave Matthews to Led Zeppelin.
Future plans: Study Pre-Medicine at Penn State University and go to medical school.
Words to live by: Someone else out there in the world may have it worse than you do, so count your blessings.
One goal before turning 30: Start a family.
One thing people don’t know about me: I like to make art. I enjoy working with sculpture and ceramics.
By GORDON GLANTZ
Take a snapshot of Springfield senior Jeffrey Meyers, and it reveals a three-sport varsity athlete, an aspiring physician with a near perfect ACT score and GPA and a king’s crown from homecoming.
While the song says that every picture tells a story, leafing through the full photo album of Meyers’ life tells the tale.
His is a story of being dealt a losing hand, one that would have caused many to fold, and coming out a winner.
It is one of finding hope and faith.
It is one of sacrifice of a sibling.
It is one of forgiving while not forgetting.
It is one of redemption.
The snapshot of Jeffrey Meyers, the Univest Featured Male Athlete, we see today would be in black and white if he were just another noteworthy student-athlete.
It is his past, his story, providing the color.
Difficult Beginnings
Meyers does not need to be coaxed into sharing his story.
In fact, it is more difficult to hear it than it is for him to tell.
The first eight years of his life were tumultuous for him and his younger sister, as his parents were addicts, often moving from temporary living quarters within days of arriving.
“I did not have stable parents,” he said. “They were into drugs and alcohol. We lived in so many different places. I slept on the floor and under tables. These were mostly drug houses.
“They were poor living conditions, and I was taken out of them. Ever since then, I felt distant from my parents.”
Meyers was eight at the time. His younger sister, Andrea, was a toddler. While he bore an emotional toll, his sister wore physical scars.
“She had it really bad, even though it’s hard for her to remember,” he said. “She is partially deaf from all the music being played so loud. She had bad hygiene, and like 21 cavities. She wasn’t able to grow a full head of hair until she was around five because she had boiling water spilled on her head.
“It was harsh. I feel bad for her.”
The Light
When the two siblings were removed, their older half-sister, Rebecca Piranian, stepped up. She was just a kid herself in many ways, a newlywed college student with a husband overseas in the Navy, but she took in her younger siblings.
While the transition was not easy, like an after-school special, Piranian’s love and guidance was the turning point for both Meyers and his sister, who he says is “doing really well” and is also finding an outlet in sports.
“She has been a huge part of my life,” said Meyers. “She took us on while in college, at Temple, and it had to be unexpected for her. But she did a good job, teaching me to do chores and to be responsible.”
While he credits Rebecca’s husband, Jessie Beabes, for “always being there,” he considers Piranian as the driving force in putting him on the right path.
“She had babysat for me before, but I never thought of her as a parent,” he said. “It was new for me, but it was also new for her. We learned to work with each other. Once everything settled down, it became easier for her to consider herself a parent.”
It is also the way Piranian, his legal guardian, conducts herself as a productive citizen that was important for Meyers to see at an impressionable age.
“She is a paralegal for a pharmaceutical company,” said Myers. “She works really hard. I’m proud of her.
“I feel like I want to repay her for everything. I just hope I can one day.”
Sports Therapy
While his living conditions improved, Meyers admits to having a lot of suppressed anger and that sports became therapeutic.
Lacrosse, with its contact, was so ideal that he even took up football for a bit at the high school level before switching to soccer in the fall and wrestling in the winter.
“I was angry at my parents,” he said. “I used sports to deal with that, as a way to let out my frustration. Over the years, it has got better. I just do it to have fun with my friends.”
He began lacrosse in fifth grade and took to it so well that many private schools – Penn Charter, Germantown Academy and Chestnut Hill Academy – recruited him.
“I developed a natural interest for it,” he said, adding that it was always his No. 1 sport and he hopes to play it on the club level at Penn State, despite the demands he will face as a pre-med major.
“I have played it all four years. I may have become better and quicker (at a private school). I probably would have spent more time on it, but I’m glad I stayed at Springfield. It was a big fish in a little pond thing.”
Meyers suited up for the Spartans’ football team in ninth and tenth grade as a running back/linebacker, before switching to soccer in his junior year.
Although the sport was not a complete unknown – a relative had been the coach at Washington and Lee -- Meyers apprenticed for a season on the junior varsity level before earning a starting spot as a senior this past fall.
“I felt like I just wasn’t having fun playing football, so I went out for soccer,” he said. “It was more of a brotherhood, and I felt like I fit in more.”
Dan Meder, Springfield’s soccer coach, felt his time with Meyers in the fold was too short.
“I wish I had the chance to work with Jeffrey for four years,” he said. “He is a terrific athlete with a great work ethic, but best of all is his attitude. Though he always had preferences, he always said, ‘I’ll play wherever you need me coach.’ Jeffrey was a terrific role model for the younger players on the soccer team and a pleasure to coach.
“His positive attitude, work ethic, physical and emotional strength and sense of humor will be missed.”
Because of the commitment needed for wrestling, he gave it up in ninth grade but picked it up again as an upperclassman, grappling at 162 pounds as a junior and 170 pounds this year.
But Lacrosse, it was always there.
Head coach Bill Krewson, in addition to being inspired by Meyers’ character, has nothing but praise for a young man he terms a “dream child” in the game of life.
“As a lacrosse player, Jeffrey is one of our four captains,” said Krewson. “He never complains and is always looking for ways to improve – not only for himself, but for the team as a whole. He is one of our leading scorers, and is relentless on the defensive end.”
Pauper to King
This fall, Meyers received a bit of a surprise.
His excellence in sports, and as a citizen, put him on the ballot for Homecoming King.
And when the votes were counted, he was wearing the crown.
“I was surprised, honestly,” he said. “It was a huge honor, getting that from my friends.
“I didn’t think anyone would think that highly of me.”
Meyers added that his volunteer work, which includes coaching youth soccer and working with his church, may have played a part in the voting.
There is always an element of giving back, of working with children, like at Vacation Bible School and in the church nursery and at Erdenheim Elementary School.
“He is now my student teacher in (a Springfield) Internship Program,” said Krewson. “After two weeks of working with the students at Erdenheim Elementary, when he is not there, the students are immediately asking for him. Jeffrey, at age 17, is managing to do what so many adults wish they could do.”
Meyers feels the same about Krewson, who he considers to be “a father figure” for him.
“(He) is also very important to me,” said Meyers. “He was my gym teacher in elementary school, my football coach and now my lacrosse coach. Throughout all of those times he has always motivated me and supported me.”
About Time
Three sports, commitment to academics and extensive volunteer work.
It is a wonder Meyers finds time to sleep.
He confesses that sometimes he doesn’t.
“You just have to do the work,” he said. “You have to be willing to sacrifice some things for other things, whether it is work or sports.
“If you have a goal, you can’t give up. You have to strive for it. You can’t let it go.”
It will all come in handy one day when he is burning the midnight oil as a medical student and working long shifts as a resident.
Meyers said being a doctor was always in the back of his mind, but the deal was sealed this past summer at the National Student Leadership Conference at American University in Washington, D.C.
“I always loved science,” he said. “And being in a sports environment a lot, I like to see how the body works. It’s a pretty cool field.
“Then I went to that camp. That is what sealed it up for me.”
The Bright Side
Meyers is driven by his Christian faith, which is a large reason why he maintains contact with his parents.
While he finds it hard to forget, he has found the inner peace to forgive.
“I figure that if Jesus can forgive me, I can forgive them,” he said. “I talk to them now and then. I will talk to them just to say hi, to see how they are. I try to be considerate, but that never means that I’m going to be OK with what happened.
“They are still struggling, but I can’t control that. I just have to get through high school and move on. I saw them do bad things. I went the opposite way. I want to exceed them. Like I said, my sister played a huge role. She was always there for me.”
Meyers’ spiritual journey has sent him to West Virginia with a Christian-based group working on homes.
While the sights in one of America’s most downtrodden states may have been shocking to some, Meyers was unfazed.
“It reminded me of my childhood,” he said.
He also did not keep those thoughts to himself.
His is a story he shares because he feels it is one best told.
“I have used my story to try and help other people,” he said. “I hope it has helped some people. I think it has.
“No matter how bad you think you have it, I know someone else out there has it worse. You have to look on the bright side.”
