Showcase Q&A: Canton’s Brewer discusses influences, hunting heritage and his role of big brother
The fourth annual Muddy River Showcase takes place June 21 at John Wood Community College’s Student Activity Center. The girls game will tip at 2 p.m. with the boys game to follow at 4 p.m. General admission is $10.
CANTON, Mo. — Bryson Brewer doesn’t need to follow in his older brother’s footsteps.
He needs to blaze a path of his own.
Preston Brewer continues to reiterate that.
“Bryson was telling me that he feels pressure that he has to follow my footsteps,” said Brewer, the recent Canton graduate who will play basketball at Quincy University beginning in the fall. “I told him he doesn’t have to worry about anything. Just go be who he is and play his game. Everybody is different, no matter if you’re in the same family.
“Whoever you are, you’re different from somebody else and you bring more stuff to the team as an individual. You have to be yourself, and being a leader comes with just being who you are as a person.”
Brewer is quite certain both of his younger brothers — Bryson will be a freshman at Canton High School in the fall and Carson is entering first grade — will showcase their own style and personality and potentially outdo what the 6-foot-8 forward and his teammates accomplished.
“I’m not sure who, but one of them will probably end up being better than me,” Brewer said.
He’s tried to show them the way to success.
“I want my younger brothers to see what it takes to be a half-decent athlete,” said Brewer, who was the Class 2 Player of the Year in Missouri last winter when he led the Tigers to a state runner-up finish in boys basketball.
“I want to show them no matter what happens, no matter what life throws at you, you can get through it and become better, not only as an athlete or a hunter, but as a person as well.”
In case they need to be reminded of what it takes to excel or to simply be themselves, big brother won’t be far away. That’s the luxury of attending college within 30 minutes of home.
“That’s one thing I thought about when deciding where to go,” Brewer said. “I’m really looking forward to watching Bryson compete throughout his high school career and Carson through elementary school, junior high, high school and all of his years.”
Brewer recently chatted with Muddy River Sports Editor Matt Schuckman about prepping to attend QU, his desire to excel, and the hunting heritage his family enjoys for this Muddy River Showcase Q&A.
Q: How is this summer going as you prepare to head off to college?
A: Summer is going well. I’m working at Design It in Canton, and when I’m not doing that, I’m lifting weights and getting shots up. I’m really enjoying the summer right now. Golf is a thing I’m starting to pick up more and more in my free time. It helps me get my mind off things.
Q: So what do you do at Design It?
A: I help put the designs on the screens, which you put the paint through the screens which puts the ink and design on the t-shirts.
Q: How much do you enjoy working there?
A: I really enjoy it. Just working for Danielle (Baker) and all of my co-workers there, I really enjoy working with them. It’s a great work environment.
Q: What are you looking forward to about playing in the Muddy River Showcase?
A: I’m really looking forward to getting to play with (Canton teammate Tyler Frazier) one last time. We’ve been playing together since kindergarten. Getting to play with him one last time, I’m going to enjoy every second of that. I get to play under Coach (Dalton) Armontrout one last time. And I’m especially excited to get to play for Coach (Andy) Anderson. I never had him as a basketball coach, but when I grew up in Canton, he was the basketball coach and I always dreamed of playing under him. Just getting to play with all of the Missouri guys will be a blast. I’ve known them for several years and competed against them. To be on the same team is nice.
Q: What was it like growing up in Canton watching great teams play?
A: They made going to Canton basketball games fun, and they made me want to push myself more and more so I could get to where they were at when they made their run to state, not only in basketball but in baseball as well.
Q: You made your run to state. What’s it like looking back on your state runner-up finish?
A: Honestly, the fourth quarter of the state championship game haunts me to this day and probably will for the rest of my life knowing that we had the lead going into that quarter. But the run we had with the guys that we had, with the coaches we had, it was an awesome moment and an awesome experience. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys to do it with.
Q: Where is your state medal these days?
A: It’s hanging up in my room. I have to look at it every night, and it pushes me to keep going and strive to be better every day.
Q: How motivated are you to make an impact when you get to QU?
A: I’m pretty motivated. I want to go there and do what I need to do to help QU become a winning program again. I’ll do whatever Coach Hoyt, Coach Bottorff and all of the other guys need me to do. I know my role is not going to be the same. I knew that going into things during the recruiting, but I’m looking forward to playing with all of the guys. At the high school team camp, I got to meet all the guys and hang out with them and get to know who they are. I’m really looking forward to it.
Q: What gets you excited about the QU program and next year’s team?
A: It’s the personalities of everyone. They are all really good guys, good guys to be around. You may not always agree with your teammates when they’re talking to you during practice, but if you can have a good time with them outside of basketball, it makes playing basketball with them more enjoyable.
Q: Do you know what you want to study at QU?
A: I’m looking to study business. Keep it general business for my first year, then pinpoint which area of business I like best.
Q: Do you have a goal, have an idea what you want to be doing down the road?
A: Something related to sports, whether that’s being a statistician or being involved in sports management, but something along the sports line. I know, sooner or later, my time playing sports is over, but I don’t ever want to stop loving the game.
Q: What motivates you to be good?
A: I have younger brothers who look up to me, so I want to be a great role model and example for them. I want to make my family and all of my friends proud of me. I don’t ever want to let anybody down. I feel if I put in work all the time and I still fall short that just shows me as a person, if I would have just given a little more, I wouldn’t have let myself down or others down. That’s how it felt after the state championship game. If I would have taken one more practice a little more serious, could we have won that state championship game? I ask myself those questions all the time. From here on out, I don’t want to have to ever question myself.
Q: Who was a role model who helped show you the value of hard work?
A: Definitely Lance Logsdon. He’s a good family friend. Watching him throughout high school in basketball and baseball and to see go through a shoulder injury to come back and play his senior year just showed me what dedication and resilience looked like. Watching Gabe McKenzie and Cameron Durst play basketball, watching them succeed and put in the countless hours it took for them to succeed, that influenced me to get to where I am now.
Q: I know you’re a hunter. What’s better — bagging a big gobbler or winning a big game?
A: Ohhh, that’s a tough one. That’s honestly a tough one. Would I rather win a state championship or have a bird gobble 300 times on his way in and give me the whole show, I’m probably going to have to take the state championship because you don’t get many of the those.
Q: What is your favorite time of the year to hunt?
A: I like the end of October, early November with my bow because for whatever reason I’ve always thought Halloween is a great day to hunt. I’ve heard guys on Drury Outdoors say that. They call it a prime time to hunt. It’s the beginning of the rut and all the deer are moving around. It’s normally cool by then, so you get to see a lot of action.
Q: What’s the biggest buck you’ve tagged?
A: A 160-inch nine-pointer.
Q: Does anybody in the family have a bigger one?
A: Oh, yeah. My middle brother killed one bigger this past year with a muzzleloader. He’s letting me hear about it until this day. He’s not going to let me live it down until I kill one bigger than he has. My grandpa has one bigger than I have, and so does my dad. Right now, I’m at the bottom of the leaderboard.
Q: How incredible is it that the entire family hunts together?
A: It’s really, really fun. It’s enjoyable every time, whether we’re seeing deer or not seeing deer. We just have a great time with it because we’re with each other and get to spend quality time with each other. It’s something we all love and never want to stop doing.
Q: What’s it like growing up learning from your dad and your grandpa?
A: I feel like they are always there no matter what happens, whether it’s sports related or hunting related. They are going to try to coach me through that. There are lessons you can learn with hunting and sports, but many of those lessons translate into everyday life. So I feel like they are not just my hunting and sports coaches in a sense, but they are my life coaches in some areas.
Q: What was it like going to school at Canton?
A: It was small enough — not everybody goes to a great big school — that I pretty much knew everybody that walked the halls. They knew who I was. You can carry on a conversation, even if it wasn’t your close buddy. You could just strike up a conversation and communicate with everybody. You could be who you are and nobody will judge you.
Q: Did you have a favorite class or a favorite teacher?
A: I’d say pre-calculus was my favorite class. It pushed me in the math field, and I really enjoy math. So I feel like it challenged me and it didn’t come easy for me, so I had to put in work and study for tests and make sure I did my homework right.
Check out more of the Muddy River Showcase Q&As at the links below:
Payson Seymour’s Blake Schwartz
South Shelby’s Callie McWilliams
West Hancock’s Lewis Siegfried
Quincy Notre Dame’s Alex Dance
Central-Southeastern’s Lauren Miller
Miss Clipping Out Stories to Save for Later?
Click the Purchase Story button below to order a print of this story. We will print it for you on matte photo paper to keep forever.