Go Patriots!

'The luckiest man'

By Dave Zeitlin, Sports Editor

TREDYFFRIN — The toughest guy at the Valor Bowl wasn't a 300-pound offensive lineman or a pop-right-back-up-after-every-crushing-tackle running back.

It was an older, diminutive, gray-haired gentleman with a striped polo shirt, a newspaper stuffed into his back pocket, and a picture of inspiration, literally, hanging from his neck.

His name is Bill Myers, and in between the first and second quarters of the all-star football game that features the fittest and most elite athletes in Chester County, he spoke about his son, Dustin, who at one time was one of the fittest and most elite athletes in Chester County.

That was almost a decade ago, before Dustin Myers left Great Valley after playing both baseball and football for the Patriots ... before he discovered his new sports love: calling games on the radio ... before one of the world's rarest and deadliest diseases ravaged his body, first taking away use of his left arm, then his ability to speak and swallow, and then, almost mercifully, his life.

Dustin was 26 when he died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease) on May 1. His family and friends still grieve for him every day. But when Valor Bowl co-founders Scott Allison and Joe Carroll asked if they could give an award in Dustin's memory (through 12 years of the game's existence, honoring fallen athletes has been a running theme), Bill was happy to oblige.

Some people in the Myers family thought it was too soon, the pain too fresh. But ever since the first of May, Bill's pain has been fighting a losing battle with his wonderful memories.

"I'm reveling in the joy of having had 26 years with a wonderful son," Bill said softly along the sidelines at Conestoga High School's Teamer Field during the second quarter of Wednesday's all-star game. "I had a son who influenced me to change the way I am. How many people can say that?

He paused.

"I hurt big time. I cried buckets of tears. But not everyone has had what I had."

Before Bill said this, using words powerful enough to drive back the strongest lineman, he took the microphone and told everyone at the Valor Bowl the story of his son. He relayed a memory of how Dustin, who was never very big, made a touchdown-saving tackle on a guy twice his size before later telling his dad how difficult it was to get back up. He then borrowed the famous quote from the great Lou Gehrig, calling himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

Through it all, Bill's voice never trembled. And with a picture of his son in his Great Valley uniform hanging over his heart, the toughest guy at the Valor Bowl presented the Dustin Myers Memorial Award to Phoenixville senior Sam McQuiston.

"So many wonderful things are happening," said Bill, who lives in Frazer. "I just got a condolence letter from a family with four sons saying how he influenced their lives. The day he died he was still in the living room before they took his body away, and there were people in there crying I didn't even know."

The outpouring of support meant just as much to Dustin, affectionally known as "D-Man" by his friends. Although he hardly could speak in his final days, he found a way to recite a thank you letter to his longtime girlfriend Shelby Bassett. In it, he expressed gratitude to all the people who attended a beef and beer fundraiser held for him. And in doing so, he opened one last window into his heart:

Now, anyone who knows me would know that I would rarely shy away from calling myself awesome. But, despite how awesome I always knew I was, I couldn't help but feel undeserving of all the attention. Awesome as I am, I'm just Dustin, the sarcastic, sometimes shy, easy-to-complain guy who used to eat too many fish sticks as a kid and who openly admits a love for the movie "Love Actually." Nonetheless, seeing so many people that I am grateful of knowing forced me to do just about everything I could to not start crying tears of thankfulness. It was definitely a very profound "God is good" moment in my life.

D-Man's love for fish sticks and certain chick flicks were only a small part of his appeal. There are too many other memories to count. When asked some of his favorites, Bill recalled how, from Little League to high school, Dustin made so many snazzy plays that it seemed his name was recited on a constant loop over the loudspeaker. And Cameron Myers, one of Dustin's four siblings, smiled when thinking about the time an 8-year-old Dustin beat him in miniature golf when he was 16.

"He was always exceptional," Bill said, "wherever he played."

When he graduated from Great Valley in 2002 and attended Blooomsburg University, Dustin stayed around sports, broadcasting most of the Huskies' football games. One time, his former Great Valley teammate Bill Zwaan Jr., then a quarterback at West Chester University, came to the middle of the field and waved up to his buddy in the broadcast booth before a WCU-Bloomsburg game. Dustin, who remained close friends with Zwaan Jr., liked sports broadcasting so much he went on to work for local radio stations WCOJ and WCHE after graduating from college.

"It's so sad because he's so young," said Bill Zwaan Sr., West Chester University's football coach and a staple of the local sports community. "Billy and his friends all knew he had the disease but it was still a tremendous shock. He was so full of life."

Amazingly, Dustin's appetite for life never changed, even when he first realized he had trouble moving his left arm while working out last March. For a long time after that, Dustin saw many different doctors and underwent many tests, but no one could figure out what was wrong. Then, right before Thanksgiving, the rest of his body began to go. And on Dec. 14, he got the grim diagnosis from a neurologist at Johns Hopkins: it was ALS.

"It's just a very, very uncomfortable strange feeling," Cameron said. "It's the kind of thing you hear about. You hope and wish and pray it doesn't happen to you -- and it doesn't usually because it's such a rare disease.

"For the last 18 months, the whole family has just been paralyzed, consumed with worrying about him, taking care of him."

Of course, Dustin wouldn't have wanted it that way. Even after hearing the diagnosis, he remained youthful, hopeful even. It's the kind of attitude Bill has tried to employ in his own life, asking himself before he does anything, one simple question: What would Dustin do?

And whenever he has any doubts, whenever he has any trouble getting up in the morning, Bill Myers can think about the time Dustin told him he'd be the first one to beat the disease — and, even more, how he believed him.