Most of the time, balancing life with school, sports, family, and many other things can be very stressful and difficult. WTHS sophomore Rylan Lother is able to manage all of this better than anyone: he plays three sports while showing great leadership, maintaining a 4.3 GPA, and keeping up with friends and family every day. Throughout his first two years of high school, Rylan has shown amazing leadership, athletic ability, and even academic integrity through it all. Within the Warren community, Rylan certainly deserves more recognition, and he is putting in hard work and dedication daily.

Rylan has managed to show great leadership, earning the honor of assistant captain his freshman year. Lother described the whole situation, mentioning “I came in my 8th grade spring hockey season and was really able to prove to my coaches and teammates my leadership skills.” On top of this, he added “my freshman fall season really didn’t feel like my first full season with the team as I was really able to get comfortable with my teammates and coaches the prior spring season.” Lother heavily praised the two upperclassmen captains at the time. “Yeah they were great, they took a lot of the leadership pressure off of me and I was able to kind of lead by example rather than speaking out a ton but yeah that whole opportunity meant a lot to me.”

Rylan went on to talk a lot about school and mentioned how he got a lot of work but was luckily  able to get a lot of it done in school as he had a late study hall period. “It was great not having to do a ton of work at home, [and] being able to dedicate my focus to other things that were important to me as well.” The commitment to both baseball and golf was a lot in both the fall and spring semester, however, and Lother mentioned “we had practice after school every single day and it was really a struggle to get in bed at a reasonable time most nights.”

Being a golfer had also left him with the struggle of missing classes for certain meets and said “sometimes it was a lot of work to get caught up in my classes and I really appreciate my teachers for allowing me to ask a lot of questions letting me understand the topics better.” At the end of the day, Rylan was able to endure all of these struggles while keeping a positive attitude as well as maintaining very good grades. Rylan highlighted the importance of playing all of these sports and the impact of them on his life when he claimed “it’s great for the fact that I’m always working with my teammates and these sports really help me with confidence and getting through adversity.”

Many people probably think that it would be difficult to maintain determination, but Lother mentioned how early on in life, his Dad was his main motivation. As the years went on, he described his motivation in a unique way, bringing up that “the feeling of success really led to my motivation and pushed me further in sports, school, and really anything you could think of.” Lother also praised the fact that through his sports he is able to stay well conditioned and stay in shape. “It allows me to be active all year round, but honestly you really get used to it and it allows you to become more of an athlete.”

Coming in with Rylan for their 8th grade spring season for hockey was Adam Spisak, a fellow sophomore who has really found a bond with Rylan. Playing on the same line for the majority of the past two seasons has improved their relationship, and Spisak described the relationship stating “obviously through games and practice, playing with him while also doing things outside of sports with him our chemistry has certainly gotten better, he’s someone that I can always rely on.” When asked about Rylan’s leadership qualities, Spisak mentioned “he’s someone who always takes charge while also staying very positive and the dedication he has is great. Rylan is always putting in work trying to get better.”