A blind student's unique place in college hoops

EVANSVILLE – It's his passion that pulls him out of bed each morning — 7 a.m. sharp — so he can sit in front of his laptop in Room 125 of the Hale Hall dormitory and listen while a digitized voice spits out the college basketball news of the day.

It's his initiative that has his phone buzzing a few hours later. Who might it be today? Brad Stevens? Rick Pitino? Billy Donovan? So impressive is his catalog of coaching connections it would make even the most sought-after high school recruit envious.

And it's that unmistakable ambition, relentless and unabashed, that has Bryce Weiler set to graduate from the University of Evansville in May with a 3.66 GPA, on the dean's list four straight semesters and president of the Sports Management Student Marketing Group. It has him singing the national anthem before men's basketball games, sitting on the bench during them, calling others on the radio.

No matter that he holds no official role on the team.

No matter that he's never played the sport.

No matter that he's never even seen a basketball game.

Wait. He can't do that, right? Not when he's been blind since birth, never able to discern what his parents and three younger sisters look like, never able to watch his favorite sport, never able to marvel at the hardwood beneath the players' feet or the competition unfolding upon it.

But that's the thing. It stopped being about what Bryce Weiler can't do a long time ago.

He wanted to call games on the radio. How, without being able to see the action? Bryce prepares for hours, memorizing the rosters of each team, their statistics and each coach's gameplan. He draws on that knowledge to complement what the play-by-play announcer says. He has done this on student radio and a local station.

"He blows me away," said his on-air partner Alex Gould. "Ninety percent of the time when we're calling a game, I forget he's blind."

He wanted to learn how to shoot a basketball. So he asked one of the Evansville assistant coaches to stand underneath the net and clap once, the echo allowing Bryce to navigate where the basket was. Friends say he shoots 70 percent from the foul line.

He wants to work in sports. So a few years ago, he began emailing college basketball coaches, hoping to build a network that would one day land him a job. Today, the references on his resume include the Celtics' Brad Stevens, Louisville's Rick Pitino and Pittsburgh's Jamie Dixon.

"He's got energy out the gazoo, every single day," said Evansville coach Marty Simmons, who invited Bryce to sit on Evansville's bench during home games after meeting him four years ago.

"And he's got a heart that could fill this arena. At times, you feel sorry for yourself, maybe after a tough loss. I'm in my office, thinking about what I could have done differently. Then he walks through. You're like, wow. How can I ever think like that when he's able to do what he's able to do?"

A unique mind

He came kicking and screaming four months early, a victim of an eye condition called retinopathy of prematurity. But spend an afternoon with the 22-year-old from Claremont, Ill., and the disability gets lost in the clutter of a college kid's life — lunch with friends, jumpshots in the gym, hours spent studying his dorm room.

"This is Maggie," he says introducing one of his many friends who join him regularly for lunch. "I met her on December 2, 2011."

He hears his friend and broadcast partner, Gould, sit down at the table.

"What's for lunch today Alex? The usual?" he asks. "Turkey Panini? Lay's chips?"

Bryce's mind is an encyclopedia of detail, crammed with the minutiae most of us so readily forget. He texts friends on the two-year anniversary of the day they met. He spouts scores of college basketball games that occurred five years ago. He namedrops. He datedrops. He never, ever shies from sharing his opinion.

A second friend, Chelsea Elliot, sits down at the table. Bryce introduces.

"This is Chelsea, she's a big Evansville basketball fan," he said. "I'm going to have her sit with me on the bench on January 26, one day after Butler faces my friend Steve Lavin and St. John's for a 4 p.m. Eastern tip-off."

He is habitually punctual. If a friend is late to lunch, he reminds them how unhappy it makes him to helplessly wait in the cafeteria, unable to grab a tray and pick his lunch out like the rest of us would.

"I showed up one day and he told me, 'You are three minutes and 56 seconds late,'" says Rianna Hansen, a freshman who eats with Bryce on Mondays. "I haven't been late since."

He is remarkably self-sufficient. Before each semester begins, he has a friend walk his class route with him so he can memorize it. He walks it alone each time after. Every morning, he prints off his notes in Braille for that day's classes and reads every word.

"He'll come in each day and know the material front and back," says one of his sports management professors, Dr. Michael Newhouse. "I assigned him five papers as part of an independent study course this semester. Probably 20 pages of writing. He had it done in a week."

Bryce's retreat — his dorm room — has the technology he needs to function as a college student. His computer reads webpages aloud. His embosser prints documents in braille. There is a talking calculator and a digital audiobook player.

Every morning begins on his laptop with a Google search. Rick Pitino. Brad Stevens. College basketball. He feasts upon the news for a few hours, the scores and statistics and analysis the latest entries embedded into the ever-expanding encyclopedia.

He tackles life, long ago having come to grips with the fact that he was blind and, well, that wasn't going to change. Excuses wouldn't open any doors. So he opened them himself.

He's written for two college basketball websites. He's called games on the radio for five Evansville sports and the local minor league baseball team. He listens to three games a night on the radio and gives pregame speeches to any team that asks.

"Playing the game of basketball is something I've always wanted to do," he tells the players. "Never take it for granted."

Says Bryce: "Being blind isn't something I like very much. So I try to do things that make me forget about it. That's what gets me excited to get out of bed every day."

Coaching friends

Bryce remembers when you couldn't just type in "Brad Stevens" in Google. You had to type in "Brad Stevens Butler Bulldogs" to find the school's former coach. So he did. And he stumbled across his email address. And he sent him a note.

It struck up a friendship that continues to this day. Stevens invited Bryce, then a student at the Indiana School for the Blind in Indianapolis, to attend practice at Hinkle Fieldhouse during the 2009-10 season. They shot free throws afterward, Stevens clapping underneath the basket while Bryce sank one after another.

"He's a sports, and more specifically, a hoops junkie," says Stevens, who still speaks with Bryce every few weeks. "He knows more about what's going on in the world of basketball than I do."

They stayed in touch throughout that first season. By spring, Stevens invited Bryce to listen to his team prepare for a 2010 Sweet Sixteen matchup with Syracuse.

After practice, Stevens asked Bryce if he believed Butler would win.

"No, I don't," he told him flatly.

"What can I tell my guys to make them believe differently?" Stevens asked.

"Tell them not to get wrapped up in the name on the opponent's jersey," Bryce said. "Tell them Syracuse is just like any other team."

It was the last thing Stevens told his team before they took the court.

The Bulldogs won that one. And the next to advance to the program's first Final Four. Stevens gave Bryce a piece of the net. He carries it in his pocket to this day.

Bryce figured one coach wasn't enough. So he began emailing others — Florida's Donovan, Pitt's Dixon, Boston College's Steve Donahue, Louisville's Rick Pitino.

"I've never met anyone like him," said Nick Gardner, Butler's radio analyst, who's known Bryce since he visited the team's practice. "He's fearless. If someone doesn't get back to him, he says OK, time to move on to the next one."

Pitino did get back to him, and invited him to a game two seasons ago. When Louisville made the Final Four later that year, Pitino sent his strand of netting to Bryce.

A year later, after Pitino's Cardinals won the national title, he sent him a championship ring.

Basketball remains his passion, the way it's been since he first heard Don Fischer call Indiana games and Brian Barnhart call Illinois games on the radio as a kid. But Bryce is widening his network. He's spoken with Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. He's set to visit with Colts coach Chuck Pagano after the season.

"It's amazing how many people he's connected with and all the things he's participated in at Evansville," Stevens said. "From what I can tell, he's made the most of his college experience."

His goal? To land a job in an athletic department, to stay close to the games he's grown to love. He says there is no dream job. He's not picky. He'll take whatever he can get.

"Not being able to see hasn't stopped him from being a part of the sports world," says a new friend in the coaching business, Butler's Brandon Miller. "And the thing about Bryce? He's very direct. He tells you what he's thinking. I like that."

And so it doesn't scare Bryce that the comfortable cocoon he's created in his four years at Evansville is about to disappear. A daunting reality awaits – life after college – with all its burdens and all its uncertainty.

Where will it take him? He's not sure. But he is sure he'll be just fine.

"Whatever athletic department wants me to come work for them, I'll dedicate every hour of my day to make their teams more successful," he pledges. "But I know you don't always get what you want in life."

He does. Bryce Weiler knows that truth all too well. He hasn't let it get in his way yet.

Why start now?

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.