Gazette Senior Male Athlete of the Year: Brothers have kept Highland's Casey Myser driven -- and humble

Casey Myser will never get a big head, but he'll always have a great support system. Mom Mandi, dad Nathan, stepmom Stacie and especially younger brother Brady and stepbrothers Brady and Cody Bendau will make sure of both. The 6-foot-1, 210-pound Myser put up some astronomical numbers in his four-year football and baseball careers at Highland, which is why the 19-year-old has been named Gazette Senior Male Athlete of the Year, but his brothers, while tremendously supportive and proud, won't hesitate to knock him down a peg or two. Brady Bendau is called Big Brady when the four are together because he's the oldest and biggest of the group, having graduated from Highland in 2025, while Brady Myser is Little Brady because he just finished his sophomore year at Highland. Growing up, when the Bradys played against middle brothers Casey Myser and fellow 2026 Highland grad Cody Bendau in pickup basketball, it was never pretty. Heck, even Nathan and Stacie's 2018 wedding was memorable for more than an exchange of vows. "My dad's wedding, we were in Hilton Head and me and Big Brady were fighting and wrestling the entire time," Casey Myser said. "Now we're literally best friends, but those basketball games always ended in a fight. Someone was always crying in the end, 100%." That has pretty much come to a halt now that everyone is older and more mature, but Myser's brothers, while quick to acknowledge he's an incredibly gifted and hard-working athlete who excels at almost any sport he tries, jumped at the opportunity to point out a few of his shortcomings. "I would be at his (seventh-grade) basketball games and the cheerleaders would be doing, 'Sink it, Casey, sink it,'" Little Brady said of his brother's free throw woes. "It was an airball every single time." "What does Casey not do well?" Big Brady asked rhetorically. "This is an easy one. Ask Casey to shoot a free throw. It's the most disgusting thing ever. It's like a line drive in baseball." Big Brady, Cody and Little Brady, a right-hander who also claimed his left-handed sibling can't throw a spiral, love to rib their brother, but they also are his biggest supporters as he heads to Ohio University on a baseball scholarship. "I'd see him hit three home runs in one game and think that was normal," Little Brady said. "Then I realized that's pretty hard to do." "Casey is the most talented athlete to come through Highland," added Cody, a lineman for the Hornets football team and heavyweight wrestler. "There were some things Casey did where you just had to tip your hat. I think he's a generational talent, but the thing about Casey is he's so humble. It doesn't matter who you are, he treats you the same. He never let his numbers or the hype go to his head." Big Brady, also a Hornets lineman and heavyweight wrestler, agreed. "Casey's the best player I ever played with," he said. "I don't think that's up for debate. He's a dude." THE ATHLETE Myser's four-year numbers and athletic accomplishments at Highland have been well-documented, but to see them all at one time is still impressive. In his varsity football career — he played mainly special teams as a freshman — he set Medina County records for points (552), total touchdowns (92) and rushing TDs (80) while finishing third in rushing yards (4,847). While earning first-team Division II All-Ohio honors and Gazette MVP his final two seasons, he also set county season marks for points (276), total TDs (46) and rushing TDs (39) as a junior and holds the school mark for rushing yards in a game (320). As a team, Highland won Suburban League American Conference titles his final three seasons and also reached the D-II, Region 6 championship game three straight times, losing to two-time reigning state champion Avon on each occasion. On the diamond, he was second-team D-II All-Ohio as a senior, when he was named Suburban League American Conference co-Player of the Year for the two-time reigning league champion Hornets, and first-team D-III All-Ohio as a junior, when he led the county in batting average (.508), on-base percentage (.620), slugging percentage (.814), OPS (1.430) and triples (3). Planning to major in education or marketing at Ohio University and eventually enlist in the U.S. Navy when he's taken baseball as far as he can take it, Myser hit .431 with two home runs, 24 RBIs, 21 runs and 18 stolen bases as a Highland senior. Over his prep baseball career, the outfielder was 101-for-259 (.390) with 20 doubles, six triples, six home runs, 67 RBIs, 82 runs, 32 stolen bases and 52 walks. While gifted with a ton of natural athletic ability, Myser, who bench presses 315 pounds, squats 510 and deadlifts 465 while running the 40-yard dash in a shade under 4.6 seconds, is most proud of maximizing it. "When I was younger I was bigger than everyone, but my parents always told me I wasn't always going to be the biggest or fastest kid," he said. "I knew I had to have the edge on people by taking it a step further in the weight room. I grew up knowing there was someone out there better than me, so I always wanted to be the guy who was working harder." Myser attributes his love of baseball to his mom, who was his T-ball coach, and late maternal grandfather Richard Szalay, a longtime varsity baseball coach at Olmsted Falls. "Papa was huge into baseball," he said. "Whenever we went to his house, there were always games on. He was always taking me to the fields and pitching to me, hitting me balls. It was just something I grew up loving to do." From his mom Mandi, who coached varsity softball at Highland from 2008-12, Myser learned to deal with the fact baseball is a game where you fail much more often than you succeed. "That was the hardest part for me, for sure," he said. "I'd go through games where I was so upset, but my mom would always tell me it's a kid's game and you're going to fail a lot. That's why the last few years I just tried to go out there and have as much fun as I could playing with my friends." THE FAMILY Myser and Little Brady live primarily with their mom, but they also spend a lot of time with Nathan and Stacie, who basically live a long touchdown run, outfield throw and relay away. That means they grew up with Big Brady, who will be a sophomore at Miami (Ohio), and Cody Bendau, who will be a freshman at Ohio State. "Us as brothers, we keep each other accountable," Big Brady said. "We make fun of each other and dish it out to each other. We'll be like, 'Oh, Casey, great game. You're the best. You're the greatest.' We're just really sarcastic with each other, but we try to keep each other grounded. Shout out to our parents, too. They do a great job." Boys, of course, will be boys. "Oh, brother," Cody said. "We all got along well from the start, but sometimes we were a little too much for our parents. We have so many good memories." And a few not so good ones. "We would always go for bike rides," Myser said. "One time, before any of us had real phones, we were on the trails at Blue Heron, which was by our house at the time, and we got lost. We were freaking out. We thought we were going to have to sleep in the woods. We finally found our way out but we didn't know where we were, so we went to some random house, called my dad and he came and picked us up." Nathan wasn't happy, but he got used to it. During the pandemic, all four boys frequently stayed up until the wee hours of the night playing Fortnite. Even when they weren't in the same house, they'd be in contact as minutes turned into hours and hours. "We'd be up until 3 in the morning on the downstairs TV," Myser said. "My dad would come down screaming and yelling for us to go to bed." In those days everything was a competition, and sometimes it still is, so Myser was asked to pick which of the four brothers was the best — or worst — at certain things. Strongest: "Big Brady will kill me for this, but at our peaks it was Cody. Brady always thought it was him, but I think it was Cody. They got all skinny and lost weight for college, so right now it's me." Fastest: "Little Brady will always say he's the fastest, but he's not. It's me. He's always telling me how much better he is than me in everything in life." Most competitive: "It's definitely me. If I don't win, I'll be fighting with someone on the ground afterward." Most athletic: "I want to say me, but my little brother is really good at everything he does. He'd always beat me at basketball in the driveway growing up, and he was a foot shorter than me." Worst temper: "When we were younger, it was Big Brady. Now that we're older, it's me or Little Brady, but I instigate it." Calmest: "Cody, 100%. When we were all together, he's the one who would always say, 'Guys, I don't think this is a good idea.' We would always make fun of him for that." Friendly and outgoing, Myser loves having Big Brady and Cody as part of his family and is extremely grateful for everything Little Brady, stepmother Stacie, father Nathan and mother Mandi have done for him. "I don't want to inflate his ego, but Little Brady is my biggest role model," he said. "He keeps me humble. He never tells me he's proud of me or I had a good game, but I really want to be a good role model for him. He's someone I look up to and want to make proud so he can follow a good path. "Stepmom, the biggest thing for her is she keeps my dad calm. That dude will get so antsy during games, pacing up and down a section of the stands. She knows how to keep him relaxed in those high-pressure situations. "My dad is someone I just really want to make proud. I know he gets super into the games, but he doesn't show a ton of emotion afterward. I just want to make him proud when I play. "My mom's done everything for me, from taking me to (baseball) tournaments all around the country to always being the first person I'm running off the field to hug after a game. No matter how good or bad I play, she's always going to be there for me." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com.