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All for Merryk: Steward hopes to keep playing for son
Almost 800 miles separate Art Steward from his son. A hint of sweetness crosses his stoic face anytime he hears the name of 20-month-old Merryk. His smile shines like the impossibly big sky above Montana.
Two years ago, opportunity and obligation collided the way they can in basketball. While putting the wraps on a junior college stint in Casper, Wyo., and scouring regional Division I schools for his next stop, Steward’s girlfriend Kristin told him she was pregnant.
“Scared, nervous, all of the above,” Steward says about his reaction to the news that would jar any driven 21-year-old. “Being young and not knowing anything and not having a degree to start a foundation, it was scary.”
Steward chose to head north to attend the University of Montana and play basketball while Kristin and Merryk drove south to Laramie, Wyo., so she could study kinesiology at the University of Wyoming.
There were no hard feelings. That’s just the way it was.
Steward, now a 23-year-old fifth-year senior, is a basketball player who self-evidently loves the game and whose every move reflects it. But it’s not his true love, and it hasn’t been for the last two years; Merryk holds that spot in his heart.
“He’s my pride and joy,” Steward says, looking out over an empty Dahlberg Arena with his right hand firmly grasping the tattoo of Merryk’s footprint on his left bicep.
If not for the support of his and Kristin’s families, they may not have kept Merryk. Two years removed, Steward can’t imagine life without his son. Merryk is his inspiration and respiration.
To the outsider, Steward is a quiet man smoldering with intensity, an undeniable love for his son, and clear eyes set on goals. His basketball career at UM came to a close in March after a loss to Wisconsin in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.
Steward, who will graduate with a degree in psychology from UM in May, hopes his playing career isn’t quite over. He plans to move back to Casper to spend the summer with his family. Come August, he hopes to travel overseas to test his fortune in the professional basketball venues of Germany.
He wants to keep playing for Merryk. He wants to share everything with him.
Steward grew up in Casper, a town of about 55,000 residents. It’s surrounded partly by mountains and partly by windswept fields, covered in grain in the summers and in snow in the winters.
Steward spent his upbringing in a gym; his father, Abe, was a physical education teacher and a coach in Casper. In third grade Steward began to take basketball seriously and joined a traveling team. Youth
basketball in Wyoming is a perpetual series of long drives across dark and icy landscapes to small towns sprinkled far apart.
“We were always at the gym, so what else were we going to do? Go play basketball,” he says bluntly.
Abe Steward knows how joyful and profound the rapport of a boy and a ball could be. He fostered both Art’s and older son Trei’s love for the game through his own experience. Abe Steward played for the Carolina Cougars, a pro team in the American Basketball Association before the ABA/NBA merger in 1976, and then played for the Philadelphia 76ers before playing in Brazil.
Art Steward grew into a standout basketball player at Natrona High and received his first scholarship offer from the University of Colorado as a junior.
“I thought, ‘I’ll just wait until senior year and maybe I’ll get a better offer,’” Steward says.
Over the next year Steward garnered interest from a ruck of West Coast powers, like San Diego State, Pepperdine and University of California—Santa Barbara. But Steward put off contacting coaches and found himself with no college plans late in the summer after graduating high school in May 2007.
One week before classes started Steward accepted an offer to play basketball at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville, Ala., about 30 minutes north of Birmingham. He packed his car and drove 25 hours to join his new team.
“It was just an impulse,” he says with his notorious, extra-wide smile.
Nine games into his freshman season Steward broke his right foot and missed the rest of the season after surgery. He transferred to Casper College the following year, but just a week into practice, Steward’s foot gave way again. Another surgery to place a screw in his foot stole another season from him. Steward gleamed in his second year at Casper, averaging nearly 15 points and four rebounds while earning Region 9 Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Amid his stellar year, he found out he was about to become a father. Steward wanted to pursue more basketball and higher education — the two things he knew would benefit his newly formed family.
Following his second year at Casper he signed with Montana. Two weeks before leaving for Missoula, Kristin gave birth to Merryk, leaving little father-son time.
“Leaving my little guy behind was hard but I knew it was for the best,” Steward says. “I just try to focus on why I’m here at Montana; it’s going to provide for my son in the future.”
Devoted to play and study for his son and the willingness to carry on away from Merryk prolonged his career. It is, as well, the ability to stand apart, independent, true to himself, the frontier man of the modern age.
“Whenever Merryk and Kristin made it to the games, Art was a different guy,” Montana head coach Wayne Tinkle says. “It’s neat to see a young father take responsibility and be a part of his son’s life. It can so easily go the other way.”
Steward stands a muscular 6-foot-4, but his zigzagging through the towering timber of men much taller than him bespeaks exceptional body control. Despite playing the guard position his whole career, Tinkle turned Steward into a post player and a bruiser — a role viewed alternately as noble and ferocious. He earned the gratitude of his teammates, glad that he did the job no one else was fit for.
“Art was our quiet leader,” Tinkle says. “He’s got his priorities straight and he sent that message to the team to keep everyone in check on and off the court.”
In his first year with the Grizzlies, Steward averaged almost nine points and four rebounds. His senior year Steward upped both his points and boards, and played an integral role in the Grizzlies’ magical season, which included a 14-game winning streak, a Big Sky Conference championship and a bid to March Madness.
“Every senior wants to go out with a bang,” Steward says. “That’s what we did.
“The NCAA tournament is something you dream about. Ever since you started playing basketball, you hear about it. You get there, and it’s like, ‘Wow, you really made it.’”
Steward will continue feeling out the seam between his identity in a sport that has defined him since grade school and whatever he might become or do next, out of uniform, away from the confines of the court and the quest for championships, and as a father.
Soon Merryk will know all about it.
All for Merryk: Steward hopes to keep playing for son
Almost 800 miles separate Art Steward from his son. A hint of sweetness crosses his stoic face anytime he hears the name of 20-month-old Merryk. His smile shines like the impossibly big sky above Montana.
Two years ago, opportunity and obligation collided the way they can in basketball. While putting the wraps on a junior college stint in Casper, Wyo., and scouring regional Division I schools for his next stop, Steward’s girlfriend Kristin told him she was pregnant.
“Scared, nervous, all of the above,” Steward says about his reaction to the news that would jar any driven 21-year-old. “Being young and not knowing anything and not having a degree to start a foundation, it was scary.”
Steward chose to head north to attend the University of Montana and play basketball while Kristin and Merryk drove south to Laramie, Wyo., so she could study kinesiology at the University of Wyoming.
There were no hard feelings. That’s just the way it was.
Steward, now a 23-year-old fifth-year senior, is a basketball player who self-evidently loves the game and whose every move reflects it. But it’s not his true love, and it hasn’t been for the last two years; Merryk holds that spot in his heart.
“He’s my pride and joy,” Steward says, looking out over an empty Dahlberg Arena with his right hand firmly grasping the tattoo of Merryk’s footprint on his left bicep.
If not for the support of his and Kristin’s families, they may not have kept Merryk. Two years removed, Steward can’t imagine life without his son. Merryk is his inspiration and respiration.
To the outsider, Steward is a quiet man smoldering with intensity, an undeniable love for his son, and clear eyes set on goals. His basketball career at UM came to a close in March after a loss to Wisconsin in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.
Steward, who will graduate with a degree in psychology from UM in May, hopes his playing career isn’t quite over. He plans to move back to Casper to spend the summer with his family. Come August, he hopes to travel overseas to test his fortune in the professional basketball venues of Germany.
He wants to keep playing for Merryk. He wants to share everything with him.
Steward grew up in Casper, a town of about 55,000 residents. It’s surrounded partly by mountains and partly by windswept fields, covered in grain in the summers and in snow in the winters.
Steward spent his upbringing in a gym; his father, Abe, was a physical education teacher and a coach in Casper. In third grade Steward began to take basketball seriously and joined a traveling team. Youth
basketball in Wyoming is a perpetual series of long drives across dark and icy landscapes to small towns sprinkled far apart.
“We were always at the gym, so what else were we going to do? Go play basketball,” he says bluntly.
Abe Steward knows how joyful and profound the rapport of a boy and a ball could be. He fostered both Art’s and older son Trei’s love for the game through his own experience. Abe Steward played for the Carolina Cougars, a pro team in the American Basketball Association before the ABA/NBA merger in 1976, and then played for the Philadelphia 76ers before playing in Brazil.
Art Steward grew into a standout basketball player at Natrona High and received his first scholarship offer from the University of Colorado as a junior.
“I thought, ‘I’ll just wait until senior year and maybe I’ll get a better offer,’” Steward says.
Over the next year Steward garnered interest from a ruck of West Coast powers, like San Diego State, Pepperdine and University of California—Santa Barbara. But Steward put off contacting coaches and found himself with no college plans late in the summer after graduating high school in May 2007.
One week before classes started Steward accepted an offer to play basketball at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville, Ala., about 30 minutes north of Birmingham. He packed his car and drove 25 hours to join his new team.
“It was just an impulse,” he says with his notorious, extra-wide smile.
Nine games into his freshman season Steward broke his right foot and missed the rest of the season after surgery. He transferred to Casper College the following year, but just a week into practice, Steward’s foot gave way again. Another surgery to place a screw in his foot stole another season from him. Steward gleamed in his second year at Casper, averaging nearly 15 points and four rebounds while earning Region 9 Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Amid his stellar year, he found out he was about to become a father. Steward wanted to pursue more basketball and higher education — the two things he knew would benefit his newly formed family.
Following his second year at Casper he signed with Montana. Two weeks before leaving for Missoula, Kristin gave birth to Merryk, leaving little father-son time.
“Leaving my little guy behind was hard but I knew it was for the best,” Steward says. “I just try to focus on why I’m here at Montana; it’s going to provide for my son in the future.”
Devoted to play and study for his son and the willingness to carry on away from Merryk prolonged his career. It is, as well, the ability to stand apart, independent, true to himself, the frontier man of the modern age.
“Whenever Merryk and Kristin made it to the games, Art was a different guy,” Montana head coach Wayne Tinkle says. “It’s neat to see a young father take responsibility and be a part of his son’s life. It can so easily go the other way.”
Steward stands a muscular 6-foot-4, but his zigzagging through the towering timber of men much taller than him bespeaks exceptional body control. Despite playing the guard position his whole career, Tinkle turned Steward into a post player and a bruiser — a role viewed alternately as noble and ferocious. He earned the gratitude of his teammates, glad that he did the job no one else was fit for.
“Art was our quiet leader,” Tinkle says. “He’s got his priorities straight and he sent that message to the team to keep everyone in check on and off the court.”
In his first year with the Grizzlies, Steward averaged almost nine points and four rebounds. His senior year Steward upped both his points and boards, and played an integral role in the Grizzlies’ magical season, which included a 14-game winning streak, a Big Sky Conference championship and a bid to March Madness.
“Every senior wants to go out with a bang,” Steward says. “That’s what we did.
“The NCAA tournament is something you dream about. Ever since you started playing basketball, you hear about it. You get there, and it’s like, ‘Wow, you really made it.’”
Steward will continue feeling out the seam between his identity in a sport that has defined him since grade school and whatever he might become or do next, out of uniform, away from the confines of the court and the quest for championships, and as a father.
Soon Merryk will know all about it.
