Big numbers on the court reflect big achievement off

By Justin Phan

John Bryant: the big man on campus who dominates the interior and logs double-doubles in his sleep.

For a 6-foot-11, 275-pound center who leads the nation in total rebounds, it would seem that the accomplishment that he is most proud of has taken place on the court.

But Bryant's proudest accomplishment actually occurred during the summer of 2008, when he completed a three-week diet program.

"The first week is a cleanse week where you take three to four fiber shakes a day," Bryant explained. "With mine, I had a lot of protein in them. You also take seven cleaning pills that are natural herbs that are cleansing to the body three times a day for the first week."

Bryant further explained his grueling dietary regime and said, "The second and third week you take the same amount of shakes and you take these green food pills that are just a bunch of healthy vitamins and minerals that are good for your body. You take about 10 of them two or three times a day."

That was not a misprint. John was taking 20-30 nutritional pills a day during this two-week period, a process he said became dull really quickly and was not at all appetizing.

According to Bryant, the experience was one of the major turning points in his life and allowed him to understand what foods provide the best fuel possible for his body.

It also marked the pinnacle of a four-year transformation that completely altered his life on and off the court.

Growing up, Bryant's father wasn't home often because of his job as a truck driver.

With no father figure present in his life on a daily basis, it was Bryant's mother that stepped in to assume the role.

"It was my mom that ran all the leagues, from baseball to soccer, and took me everywhere. Because she was always there for me the whole way growing up, I attribute my success to her," said Bryant.

When he graduated from Pinole Valley High School in Pinole, Calif., Bryant weighed over 350 pounds and was ill-equipped to make the transition to college level basketball.

"It was limited minutes on the practice floor where I'd need subs because I wasn't making the conditioning times," said Bryant. "When you're carrying that much weight around you're going to struggle running up and down the floor and doing different types of exercise for an extended period of time."

Bryant went on to have a fairly productive freshman season regardless, finishing 10th in player efficiency rating, or PER, among freshmen. But the glaring problem was that he wasn't on the floor enough to help his team, as he averaged just 17.1 minutes per game.

With the help of a nutritionist and Joe Siara, a strength and conditioning coach, Bryant began to take better care of his body and slowly, he began to realize his potential.

"He's accepted who he is, especially after he's changed his body in the offseason and understands now a little bit more what his abilities are after spending a year and a half of us trying to get the most out of him," head coach Kerry Keating said.

The numbers reflect his effort and go to show the dramatic effect his commitment to conditioning has had.

Since his freshman season, Bryant's minutes per game have nearly doubled from the 17.1 minutes he averaged to the 30.6 he is averaging this season.

He has also seen dramatic improvement in his PER, which has risen from 22.9 to 37.7. That mark puts him third in the nation, just behind DeJuan Blair of Pittsburgh and Stephen Curry of Davidson.

Even more impressive is how valuable he has been to the Broncos this season. Bryant has accounted for 27.7 percent of the team's points, 39.5 percent of the team's rebounds and 51.4 percent of the team's blocked shots.

Contrast those numbers to his freshman season, where he was responsible for only 9.7 percent of the team's points, 16.6 percent of the team's rebounds and 37 percent of the team's blocked shots.

To Bryant, it's not all about the numbers, because the game of basketball has provided him with so much more.

"It's definitely helped me with my social skills," he said. "Being the biggest kid, you make friends just because you're the biggest and everybody knows you. But you don't really know them though."

He said, "Basketball has just made me interact with different people and develop networks."

The game is more than a sport to Bryant. It is also an emotional release. "Basketball has been my source of outleashing all my anger or frustrations. Just going out there and working out helped me relieve any stress. It's definitely been one of the most important things in my life."

Despite recounting the three weeks he spent in the cleanse program as horrible, Bryant plans on losing more weight by going through the same program again after he graduates at the end of winter quarter.

"Definitely once the season is over I'm probably going to take a week off from the Leavey Center, probably not even that, then get right back in here and get back to working out and losing more weight," said Bryant.

Bryant has been named as a top-50 finalist for the Naismith Trophy and was one of 64 invitees to the Portsmouth Invitational, a four-day, 12-game tournament in front of representatives from every NBA team.

"It's good to be mentioned on the national level being at a smaller D-1 school," Bryant said. "It's definitely saying that the hard work is paying off and it's telling me to keep going."

Contact Justin Phan at (408) 511-1918 or jphan1@scu.edu.