Ben Bryant wasn’t even born when Lyons quarterbacks coach Jon Beutjer led Wheaton Warrenville South to an undefeated season and the Class 6A state championship in 1998.
Years later, Beutjer is teaching Bryant how to play quarterback now that the sophomore is in his first season as the varsity starter at Lyons. Bryant, who turned 16 years old last week, was born a year after Beutjer threw for nearly 4,000 yards and 60 touchdowns for the Tigers before going onto play for Illinois and in the Canadian Football League.
Bryant was a student at Pleasantdale Middle School when he met Beutjer for the first time at a Lyons youth summer camp. Bryant said he then looked up Beutjer’s football biography on the Internet.
“He has been a huge help to me,” Bryant said. “He has been working with me since the sixth grade. He’s a great coach and a lot of the credit (to his season) is to him.”
The 6-foot-3, 180-pound Bryant is filling big shoes after taking over for three-year starter Tom Fiedler, who graduated and walked on at Northern Illlinois. Bryant was the starting quarterback for the freshman A team last season, then earned the starting varsity spot in the preseason. In the season opening win over Warren, he passed for 177 yards and two touchdowns.
On Saturday, Sept. 19, Bryant completed 10 passes on 18 attempts for 151 yards in a 10-7 West Suburban crossover victory over Leyden in Northlake. The game was scheduled for Friday, but postponed due to thunderstorms.
Bryant’s biggest completion Saturday set up Lyons’ only touchdown. Leading rusher Reggie Terrell scored on an 8-yard TD run with 42.8 seconds remaining in the first half one play after Bryant connected with Hasahn Austin (3 catches, 80 yards) on a 69-yard pass.
Bryant, despite being a sophomore, is still learning on the job and threw some passes over his receivers’ heads
“He’s a very good football player as a sophomore,” Lyons coach Kurt Weinberg said. “He’s made some great plays. Sometimes he has shown his age.”
Bryant entered the game completing 58 percent of his passes for 409 yards and three TDs. Behind the running of Terrell (13 carries, 86 yards) and Jimmy Saracco (8 carries, 41 yards), Lyons did a good job of keeping the pressure off Bryant. Junior running back Riley Kloes also contributed with a 49-yard run up the middle in the second quarter.
“They have done a good job of coaching me up. We have great people (contribute) every week,” Bryant said. “I learned a lot this game and that will help me getting better.”
In middle school, Bryant started working with Beutjer individually and eventually quit basketball and baseball to focus on football. He joined the Midwest Boom, a 7-on-7 travel club in Naperville, and when his team advanced to a national tournament over the summer, Bryant stayed behind to continue summer workouts at Lyons.
“(The Boom) was good. We were working on passing. You only have four seconds to throw and a lot of those players are very good,” Bryant said.
Lyons (4-0) hosts undefeated Glenbard West at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, in Western Springs.
Three of a kind
Last year on the freshman A team, Ben Bryant received snaps from his brother, Jordan, who is now the starting center for Lyons’ sophomore team.
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Ben and Jordan, along with Abby are triplets. Abby Bryant is a cheerleader for the Lions’ sophomore football team and competes in Special Olympics basketball at Lyons and Special Olympics swimming at the LaGrange YMCA.
Their father Sean Bryant grew up in Cincinnati and was a linebacker and long snapper at Eastern Michigan.
“Ever since they were little, they’ve had a football in their hands,” Laura Bryant said of her sons.
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