'He did what a lot of kids don't do': From JV bench to stardom for Southeast's Case Myers

“Hey Coach Youel, is there a reason why Case didn't get in the game today?”

Pat Youel still remembers that 2020 conversation with Case Myers' mother following Southeast's junior varsity football game at Champion. Youel, the Pirates' varsity football coach and athletic director, still remembers how upset he was because one of his bedrock philosophies is that everyone should play at the JV level.

“Let's just say there were some assistants who got an earful when we got home,” Youel said. “But I think part of that, though, if again I showed you that picture of him as a freshman, you would see why.”

Myers mainly blamed himself.

"I think whenever it first happened, I was upset, but I was not very upset at the coaches whatsoever," Myers said. "You couldn't blame them. Like honestly if I went out there, I probably would have got hurt. I was 120 [pounds] at most."

Myers' older brother, Reed, agreed.

"He kind of gave me some tough love with they shouldn't be feeling bad for you," Myers said. "Obviously, they could have put me in, but there's no fault on them for that. It was on me to get bigger and get better."

That's exactly what Myers did, becoming one of the great multi-sport athletes in Southeast history.

A bigger, stronger Myers earned first team all-league honors at two different positions (running back and wide receiver), played his role perfectly in basketball and paved a nearly unprecedented path to college lacrosse.

"He did what a lot of kids don't do," Youel said. "He didn't pout and get pissy and quit. He worked harder."

Case Myers' emergence as a superstar

Reed Myers is arguably Case's biggest influence.

"We were best friends," Myers said. "He was a role model my entire life, and at every step of the way, I was thinking what Reed would do and what I could do to be better than Reed."

While Case admired (and sought to beat) his older brother, he embarked on a separate journey. He got into lacrosse unlike Reed. On the other hand, he didn't quite share his older brother's passion for basketball.

“I played my sophomore year, but I wasn't taking it very seriously,” Myers said. “I was lifting every day."

That's right, during his sophomore season of basketball, Myers was lifting — relentlessly, religiously — turning into a player unrecognizable from the one that was left on the JV bench as a freshman.

"A big part of my weightlifting and everything like that is seeing Jaidyn [Sapp] and Spencer [Mesaros] both out there," Myers said. "[They were] kind of bigger dudes, definitely grown men playing. I was instantly like, 'Okay, yeah, what do I need to do to get to that level?'"

As a junior — standing 6-2, 185 by that point — he made 29 catches for 512 yards and five scores.

His senior season, the Pirates wouldn't have won seven games without Myers, per Youel, as he had 114 rushes for 963 yards and 12 touchdowns, 28 catches for 391 yards and four more scores and 56 tackles.

Myers did everything.

He barely touched the bench.

"By the time he's a senior, he's all-conference two years in a row," Youel said. "He's all-Northeast Ohio in the district, he's an all-state kid, and he's a kid that as a JV freshman couldn't get on the field, so that transformation is confirmation of what he is and who he is."

A love of lacrosse

Case Myers' high school lacrosse career got off to a very different start than his high school football career as he was an immediate contributor as a freshman.

"I had 100% confidence when he was out there," Southeast lacrosse coach Karl Mesaros said. "I wasn't like we're going to give up a point or anything. I knew he was going to get the job done."

As Myers grew stronger, it bore fruit in all of his sports, including lacrosse.

"It made his shot a lot stronger," Mesaros said. "We made him an attacker in his senior year and just that's probably the best move we did."

Even as Myers grew into a football star and a perfect role player for the basketball team as a senior (after not playing his junior year), lacrosse retained a special place in his heart.

It has been that way since he picked up the sport in middle school.

"I played that and baseball, and within a year, I decided I was tired of just standing in the field and looking at the sun, so I switched over to lacrosse," Myers said. "It instantly turned into my favorite sport, and even though obviously we're a small school, we don't have the best facilities, I think the passion of lacrosse really runs deep with us."

Just the second Southeast lacrosse player to play in college, following Levi Willett (Hiram), Myers has prepared for life at Mount Vernon Nazarene University by taking on a number of college players in his summer box league.

As for his time with the Pirates, Myers said he'll always remember the tremendous fan support.

And Youel will never forget Myers' journey from the JV bench to stardom — even influencing Youel's own son as they went to workouts together.

"I really wanted my son to to be with Case in those moments because I believe in Case and I believe in what Case stands for and I believe that his impact on my son will be life-altering and it already has been," Youel said. "There's probably a couple kids every year you can say this about, Brady Corley the year before and now Case. If my boys grow up to be like Case Myers, I'm going to be a really, really lucky, lucky, lucky human being."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Case Myers' journey from the JV bench to Southeast varsity stardom