A Big Guy With Even Bigger Plans

By Eric Sondheimer

March 12, 2002 12 AM PT

Noah Bryant’s shoulders are thicker than a watermelon. If one of his friends at Carpinteria High needed someone to lift a car, he’d gladly oblige.

He’s 6 feet 1, 275 pounds, bench presses 430 pounds and is the state’s top high school shotputter, with a best effort of 63 feet 83/4 inches.

Bryant’s older brother, Josh, is a freshman at Louisiana State. He’s a competitive power lifter who benches 573 pounds. Father Dan, a former thrower at Westmont College, is 52, weighs 300 pounds and benches 400 pounds.

Bryant’s mother, Susan, is only 5-1 and never afraid to ask for help from one of the herculean men around the house.

“They’ll move heavy things for me, but no one seems to be able to pick up a sock,” she said.

Dinner at the Bryant house is similar to a banquet for Sumo wrestlers.

“You have to watch your fingers,” Susan said. “Anything that doesn’t move might get eaten. We don’t have a lot of leftovers.”

Bryant was on his way to becoming an outstanding offensive lineman. He was an All-Southern Section football honoree as a junior at Carpinteria. Then, two weeks before two-a-days last summer, Bryant told his coaches he would pass up his senior football season to concentrate on track.

He agonized over his decision for weeks, not so much based on whether he’d receive a scholarship in football. He felt training full time for the shotput would help him fulfill his track potential.

“It was the hardest decision I ever made,” he said. “Track is what I love to do. It’s just something inside of me. It’s what I’m here for.”

His father turned the garage into a weight room. Six days a week in the fall, Bryant would lift weights and work out with his private coach, John Amneus. He didn’t arrive until halftime of most home football games because of his training schedule.

Loud music could be heard from the garage, where Bryant used blasts from Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen to inspire his lifting exercises.

Bryant finished third in the shotput at last year’s state meet at 61-111/2 His training has been going so well that reaching 70 feet this season is not improbable. He has thrown 65-4 in practice.

“He’s a very intense individual,” Carpinteria Coach Van Latham said. “Any time you give him a challenge, ‘Oh, come on, you can’t do that,’ it sets him off.”

Bryant is convinced he’s going to break the 70-foot barrier.

“Just the way my training has been going, that I want to do it so bad that I’m going to do it,” he said.

Watching Bryant toss a 12-pound ball is entertaining. He reaches an emotional crescendo, then lets out a loud grunt while releasing it.

“On my big throws, I’ll have adrenaline pumping before I go in,” he said. “Something clicks inside me. I start grunting and getting mean.”

When Bryant walks around campus, buildings don’t shake, but he can be an intimidating sight.

“If [students] didn’t know me, they’d probably get out of the way,” he said. “But I’m not a mean guy.”

Just don’t encourage the Bryant brothers to wrestle at home. That’s a certain way to break things, like a coffee table.

“Me and my brother used to fight a little bit,” Bryant said. “Any time he wanted to, he’d beat me up. Toward the end, we were pretty even in wrestling.”

Kentucky, Arizona, UCLA, USC and Missouri are the schools Bryant is considering for college.

When coaches come to the Bryant home for a recruiting visit, they should beware of chairs.

“Me and my dad have broken three or four chairs,” Noah said. “They’re in the basement.”

The chairs were broken not in some wrestling demonstration. They were shattered simply by a Bryant sitting in them.

These are big men with big dreams.

“Noah’s goal is to be in the Olympics some day,” his father said.

Noah never rests until his goals are attained.

Eric Sondheimer can be reached at [email protected]