A year brings some changes for 'Big Men on Campus' high school football players

After four young football players last year all choose to play at St. Edward, The Plain Dealer updates their situations ... and finds one has decided to leave the school, and possibly stop playing football.

With Jodie Valade / Plain Dealer Reporter

One year ago, The Plain Dealer featured a four-day series entitled "Big Man on Campus."

The series was the result of reporters Bill Lubinger and Jodie Valade spending a year following four of Northeast Ohio's top eighth-grade football players in 2008.

The four players were Kenneth Butler and Steven Clark for the Sims Raiders in Cleveland's Muny League; and Ryan Fallon and Ian Stuart for St. Thomas More in Cleveland's CYO, the organization that oversees sports for children in Catholic parishes.

We reported on their families, the high schools that tried to attract them, and the stories behind how they selected their schools for fall 2009.

When the series left off in October 2009, all four had chosen St. Edward High School in Lakewood and were playing freshman football for the Eagles.

This fall, we catch up with the boys as sophomores -- and find that one has decided to leave St. Edward, and perhaps football, to make a fresh start at another school.

RYAN FALLON St. Thomas More/St. Edward High

It didn't take Ryan Fallon long to feel confi dent he was going to have a good freshman year.

The confirmation came in his first game as a freshman in 2009, when the very first pass he threw in his very first start for St. Edward was a long touchdown.

That was exactly the kind of sign he needed that he was in the right place, that he'd made the right decision on which high school he should attend.

It was a long and arduous decision-making process for Fallon during his eighth-grade year, when he attended St. Leo the Great for classes and played quarterback for St. Thomas More's storied football team.

It culminated in a last-minute change from St. Ignatius to St. Edward. The 4.0 student was impressed by the academic quality of both schools, but in the end, he was won over by St. Ed's two freshman football teams. He was guaranteed to receive play ing time on one of them. As his mom, Kathy, said time and again, he wouldn't be happy if he wasn't playing.

He needn't have worried.

Ryan recovered from a broken hand suf fered midway through his eighth-grade sea son, emerged from a growth spurt standing 5-10, and was the starting quarterback on St. Ed's top freshman team.

He hooked up with his favorite receiver for 14 touchdowns, and off the field managed to make the honor roll each semester. A 4.0 student through grade school, Ryan earned about a 3.7 GPA his freshman year.

"He's a leader in that class," St. Edward var sity coach Rick Finotti said. "When we needed to get kids in the weight room, he was able to make sure they were there. He's quiet, but he's a leader."

In fact, Ryan's most trying moment of the year didn't occur on the football field or in the classroom.

His father, Michael, was arrested March 29 and charged with domestic violence, threats of domestic violence and endangering chil dren after an early-morning incident at the Fallon house, when he was issued a drug ci tation for marijuana.

The charges were eventually dismissed, and Michael went through rehab and still works as a Cleveland firefighter.

Ryan said the support of his teammates helped him through the difficult time with his family.

"Everything's back to normal," Ryan said.

On the football field everything was back to the way it was last year, too.

This season as a sophomore, Ryan was the starting quarterback for the junior varsity team, and he has dressed for varsity games so he can learn from the sidelines.

-- Jodie Valade

IAN STUART St. Thomas More/St. Edward/Padua High School

A year ago, Ian Stuart's muscles bulged from his 14-year-old frame like those on a seasoned athlete. His chiseled jaw showed the definition of a football player who had seen years of action, not a freshman lineman at St. Edward High School. All his 5 feet, 10 inches, blurred down the field each time he ran sprints in practice.

Little has changed in 12 months. Ian's body is still sculpted, he's still fast, as he was as a dominant lineman for St. Thomas More in 2008.

He's also still 5-10 and hasn't added much bulk to his 170-pound frame. His teammates caught up.

Ian was slated to switch to fullback this season after playing both de fensive and offensive line for St. Edward.

But the part changed most for Ian in the past year is he realized he wasn't happy. Most of his friends from St. Thomas More went on to Padua High School. So in October, Ian joined them.

Padua was Ian's first choice before he switched to St. Edward, and it's where his older sister, Margo, attended high school.

The move had little to do with football, and was difficult for both Ian and his mother, Valerie.

"He felt alliances to St. Ed's; it was really taxing on both of us," Valerie Stuart said. "I just figured there's no reason to stay if you want to be someplace else."

Ian wants to start over and keep a low profile now, and said he preferred not to be interviewed for this story.

Private school rules would require him to sit out a year of football after transferring, but Valerie Stuart says her son might need to get a part-time job to help contribute to education costs. He hopes to continue wrestling, as he did for St. Edward last year.

But most of all, Ian just wants to be with his friends and start anew.

-- Jodie Valade

STEVEN CLARK Sims Raiders/St. Ed ward High School

Two seasons after directing the Sims Raiders of the Greater Cleveland Muny League, Steven Clark maintains the serious look of the hyper-competitive quarterback.

St. Edward football coach Rick Finotti notices how Steven doesn't get too wound up, even after making a sensational play, as if there's something brewing within. "He's got an inner tiger to him," Finotti said.

With Steven, now a St. Edward sophomore, it's always been quiet confidence.

"I treat high school [football] like I did Muny football," said Steven, who will be 16 in late December. "It hasn't changed for me."

At least not his approach to the game.

But he's not a starting quarterback anymore. As he was his freshman season, Steven is a cornerback on the junior varsity. He has also played some wide receiver, filled in briefly at quarterback, and returns punts. They are positions where Steven can show off his improved speed from running legs of the 400- and 800-meter relays on the varsity track team last spring and AAU track this summer.

Steven, a lean 5-9, 140 pounds, is 2 inches taller and about 10 pounds heavier than last year. As a freshman, he carried a 2.8 grade-point average and served as freshman student council treasurer. He wants to get his GPA up to 3.3 this year.

One of his best friends is teammate Ryan Fallon, the JV quarterback who played at St. Thomas More in grade school. In fact, the Clarks and Fallons continue to carpool to and from school, a tradition that started during freshman football.

Steven's parents, Kim and Mike Clark, continue to adjust to other changes. Steven's sister is a freshman at Elyria Catholic, which means more tuition payments and more sacrifices.

Kim, a full-time teacher in Lorain, taught summer school again this year. And Mike, who works for the city of Cleveland's water department, still referees football games on the side to make extra money, meaning he misses most of Steven's games.

"We just have to deal with it," Mike said.

When Steven was an eighth-grader at Lorain's Whittier Middle School, the high school choice came down to St. Edward and Division I football, or Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin, a Division III school in Munson Township.

The Clarks decided the commute from their home on Cleveland's West Side to Geauga County would have been a nightmare, especially in the winter.

Although Mike is pretty sure his son would be playing with NDCL's varsity as a sophomore, neither he nor Steven regrets the decision.

"My name would be out there," Steven said, "but I wouldn't reach my potential."

-- Bill Lubinger

KENNETH BUTLER Sims Raiders/St. Edward High School

For Kenneth Butler, the leap from eighth grade to Lakewood's St. Edward High School could have been even longer than the daily commute from his home in Cleveland Heights.

From a mostly black public middle school to a mostly white Catholic high school.

From impressing the girls, to sitting in class with nothing but boys.

From jeans, T-shirts and hoodies to ties and uniforms.

To a more demanding curriculum.

The risk? Culture shock. Failure maybe.

But entering his sophomore year, Kenneth is meeting the challenge in the classroom and on the field the way he runs with the football -- determined, disciplined, with an eye on the end zone.

"I'm just doing it for her," he said, referring to his mother, "and I know one day this will pay off."

Angel Butler, a nurse's aid for home hospice-care and single mom, has been the broken record about schoolwork that parents must be. Kenneth, who turned 15 in September, has heard the sermon his whole life, even before his days as a standout eighth-grade running back for the Sims Raiders of Cleveland's Muny League.

He was listening. Kenneth, who carried a C average in middle school, managed a 3.1 grade-point average as a freshman. He considered world history his hardest but most interesting class and hit the books nightly -- even through the time crunch of football season.

He usually makes the 60-90-minute ride home by RTA bus from practice, because Angel picked up a second home health-care job to pay the tuition and other bills.

"He's matured," Angel said. "He's focused on what he has to do."

At 5-8, 170, Kenneth weighs 25 pounds more at the same height than last season. He's muscle-thick from top to bottom and can bench press 245 pounds. He's the starting junior varsity tailback and dresses for varsity, but there are three talented seniors ahead of him.

"I know my time will come," Kenneth said.

And it is coming. The undefeated St. Edward varsity piled up several one-sided victories this season, allowing Butler some decent varsity playing time. In the regular season, he carried the ball 23 times for 92 yards, including a 39-yard run and a touchdown.

St. Edward football coach Rick Finotti praised his effort. He said anytime he peeked in the classroom, he noticed Butler's tie pulled up, his top button buttoned and his face in a book.

"I think I have the talent and brains to get where I need to go," Kenneth said.

-- Bill Lubinger