On Star Scholar-Athlete Ryan Thompson and how one moment ‘truly shows us who he is’
Immediately after one of the most exhilarating moments of his young life, a sprawling game-winning save in Rockhurst’s 2020 Class 4A sectional victory over Lee’s Summit West, Ryan Thompson might have preened or otherwise basked in the moment.
He may have just absorbed the flock of Hawklets teammates swarming his way. And could even have felt compelled to crow in the direction of Connor Brummett, whose final shot he had thwarted.
Instead, no sooner was Thompson back on his feet than he was hurrying to the side of his agonized challenger, not adversary, a friend over the years who now was in a heap, weeping.
“The whole team was running at Ryan,” Rockhurst soccer coach and dean of students Matt Darby said. “Then they had to figure out, ‘Oh, wait, we need to give him a moment.’”
Because even amid the euphoria, Thompson couldn’t shrug off what he called the “pure anguish” before him.
“I don’t know exactly how that would feel, but I know it would stink if I was in that situation,” he said. “And at the end of the day, we’re just high school athletes trying to play soccer. One won and one lost, and after the whistle blows we’re no different.
“I just wanted to go over and help him and tell him it was OK and that everything will pass.”
When Thompson hugged Brummett and lifted him up, he lifted up plenty of others. Like he has in numerous other ways we’ll get back to.
“Never in a million years,” Brummett said on Thursday, could he have imagined what Thompson did for him.
If the situation had been reversed, Brummett said, he probably would instantly have celebrated with his team “like I think anyone else would have done.” But Brummett, now playing soccer at Rockhurst University, still is grateful for how Thompson soothed him as his “heart broke” and he felt so very alone.
In the stands at Rockhurst that day was Ryan’s father, Scott, who was ecstatic over the decisive PK but even more moved by what unfurled next. His wife, Pam, had been unable to attend as she was contending with oral surgery but said, “I think I had tears in my eyes,” as he explained it to her in real time by phone.
Also watching was Rockhurst president David J. Laughlin, who retweeted video of the game-winning save and wrote, “Incredible game and I am SO impressed by Ryan’s sportsmanship for his LSW competitor. Great reflection on a great match, great young man, great coaching! AMDG”
(AMDG is an acronym for the Latin Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: For the Glory of God.)
The story of Ryan Thompson, The Star’s Boys Scholar-Athlete of the Year for 2022, is about much more than the gesture that also helped earn him recognition among the NAIA’s Champions of Character last year.
But that scene sure offers a vivid glimpse into a refreshing and reassuring presence that frames his tremendous accomplishments in a more meaningful way.
It reflects a “personhood,” Scott Thompson said, that will always be with him.
“It truly shows us who he is,” Brummett said, later adding, “His action spoke so many words.”
Dazzling enough that he is the epitome of the student-athlete, standing for both academic prowess (a 4.6 grade-point average and a 34 ACT) and athletic brilliance (a two-time first-team All-State player who was vital to a state title and was invited to Prep Soccer’s High School All-America game).
He’ll head to the University of Tulsa this summer to play for a top-10 program and recently secured the presidential scholarship, Scott Thompson said, meaning “he’s kind of a coach’s best friend” with a full ride through academics.
Not that those achievements would be hollow unto themselves. But they are part of something more substantial because of how he sees and embraces his place in the world.
It’s not just that he was president of the Regis Club, which focuses on community service, and a peer leader in Rockhurst’s Sources of Strength program and led a mental health initiative, and treated each with sincere dedication.
It’s also the admirable and honorable traits he exudes day in, day out.
Darby says he constantly puts others first, reflecting his humility and selflessness, and that because of that he became the student he regarded as “kind of the unofficial voice of our senior class” and the one he’d turn to if he needed to garner student support. Thompson often reflects on qualities such as empathy, too, and how not everything is about yourself … topics he and his friends tend to speak about.
If you ask where all of this comes from, Thompson will tell you it stems from the loving parents who taught trying to be more about others than themselves and his three older siblings and his Catholic faith and the Rockhurst influence.
It comes, too, from expressions he took to heart from his paternal grandparents: “It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing,” Grandma Jeanne liked to say. Grandpa Byron made an impression with his notion that it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and an instant to ruin it, Ryan said, “so make sure you’re always cognizant of what you’re doing.”
He also was profoundly influenced by reading “To Kill A Mockingbird” in eighth grade, struck particularly by its lesson of trying to understand from where others are coming: “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks,” Atticus Finch tells his daughter in the most direct reflection of that. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
For all that, though, it’s hard to overstate the impact of one other force in his life: younger sister Lauren, who has Down syndrome. He was 4 when she was born, so with the older siblings off to school they developed a unique bond.
“He just always had that special patience and love for her,” Pam Thompson said.
While all the siblings are close, the parents said, Ryan had a distinct sense of being everything from her protector to her translator when she might feel people aren’t understanding what she’s saying. She’s a big reason why he’s so readily inclined to step back and try to understand what others are feeling.
“I wouldn’t be the same,” he said, “without that impact.”
In turn allowing him to make an indelible impact.
Many times over the last three years, Darby said, he has been awe-struck by Ryan’s patience and perspective.
“It doesn’t come along very often,” said Darby, a former Rockhurst scholar-athlete representative himself who said he fought back tears when he learned of Thompson earning this honor from The Star.
Thompson was rare not merely because he was a goalkeeper who frequently made saves that left Darby thinking “how did he get to that ball?” and a student who has had designs on becoming a neurosurgeon (but is keeping his mind open as he embarks to Tulsa).
Most of all, Darby is moved because of the grace with which Ryan has achieved it all … including at times against a prevailing tide, as exemplified in that sectional game.
“I’ve always said to people, ‘He’s like your All-American kid who doesn’t seem real,’ ” Darby said. “And then you get to know him, and he’s actually like the most real person ever.”
This story was originally published June 5, 2022 at 5:00 AM.