SnapBlog

Shana Stott glanced at her middle child while he was doing his homework in high school. Sometimes, she saw him practicing his autograph. She still has that notebook because she was not going to tell Bryson what he could not do. She just wanted to protect him. “Dude, let’s just have a plan B,” she told him. “Can you pass biology?” There was only one plan in Bryson’s mind.

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“He was always going to be Derek Jeter,” Shana said. “Not like him. He was going to be him.”

So, Shana had an idea. She schemed with the mother of one of his teammates. They took Bryson and his friend to a pizzeria in Las Vegas after a summer American Legion game. The pizza place had a faux Statue of Liberty. Shana stuffed a bunch of other clues into a bag. That’s how she surprised Bryson: They were flying to see Jeter play at Yankee Stadium during his farewell season in 2014.

Bryson’s coach insisted on his players not missing even one practice. But Shana had it all figured out. They took the red eye from Vegas. They arrived in New York at 5 a.m. ET and did as much as they could. “His ankles were so swollen at the end of the day,” Shana said, “because we walked and walked and walked.” Then, they sat in the bleachers. They saw Jeter.

“She knew what I’ve always wanted to do,” said Bryson, 25, who’s in his second year with the Phillies. “And I never wanted a real job. I didn’t know what kind of real job I wanted to do. And she was always there saying, ‘OK, you can do it. This is what you want to do. We’re going to drive to Arizona and we’re going to drive to California and we’re going to go to Tennessee. We’re going to do all this stuff, just so I can play baseball.’”

They had about 36 hours in New York. They flew home and 16-year-old Bryson, on a few hours of sleep, played his next Legion ball game. He slugged his first home run.

“It was,” Shana said, “just a perfect day.”

A photo of Shana and Bryson from that day at Yankee Stadium hangs in the classroom where Shana teaches. Next to it is a black rectangle with BELIEVE in white letters. That same friend who went with Bryson to see Jeter nine years ago came to Dodger Stadium earlier this month to watch Bryson play second base for the Phillies. Shana was there, too.

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“He was that little boy asking for autographs,” she said of Bryson. “So to watch him be on the flip side of that, it’s just really surreal. I think sometimes it’s hard just to even let it all sink in, you know?”

Shana has three special walls in her classroom at Eldorado High School in Las Vegas. One, where the Yankee Stadium photo resides, is a family wall that celebrates her three children. The second is a wall with pictures of her former students. And the other is a Phillies wall with pennants and photos of Bryson and his teammates. “I don’t talk about it a lot at work,” Shana said. She has a few students who, until recently, did not realize one of her sons was a big-league ballplayer.

Shana graduated from Eldorado High and, since 1994, has taught there. She was a P.E. teacher and a cheerleading coach, but for the past seven years, she has run a credit-retrieval program for students who have fallen behind. Shana drives more than 30 minutes each way to Eldorado, which is located on the East Side of Vegas. It’s a lower-income area and Shana works with at-risk students.

She stays late. She has a snack pantry. Sometimes she orders pizza for her students. They might not have anywhere else to go. The athletes at Eldorado — especially the soccer boys now — often gravitated to Shana. She has always juggled two families at once.

Bryson did not really understand until he was a teenager.

“The first time that she was late to a game because she was at one of their games is when I was like, ‘All right. She’s not just our mom. She’s a lot of people’s mom,’” Bryson said. “Shoot, some of my best friends call her their mom as well. Second Mom. She just cares about every single person that we’ve brought into her life, or that she’s met at school. We always say she has thousands of kids instead of three.”

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When her own kids were younger, Shana would bring them to Eldorado. She wanted them to see: Not everyone was as fortunate as them. “So,” Shana said, “I think it did put a lot in perspective for them growing up.” One of the families Shana met along the way at Eldorado was the Harpers. Britt, Bryce’s sister, was a cheerleader. Shana coached her. The Stotts and Harpers became close.

“Anytime somebody has a problem or anytime somebody needs something, she’s always there,” said Bryce Harper, who, like Bryson, still lives in Vegas. “She’s like the mother of every kid in the school. She’s always been that way. And Bryson is always there for everybody, as well. That’s just how that family is.”

Pick a game, kid! Meet ya soon! Happy Birthday 🎉 🙏🏼 https://t.co/HyY0Fm84LM

— Bryson Stott (@bryson_stott10) March 5, 2023

Shana’s extended family is Eldorado. Bryson did not realize how big fandom was until he arrived in Philadelphia. Vegas didn’t have any pro teams when he was a kid. Now, he’s met lifelong Phillies fans and young Phillies fans who will love the game forever.

It struck him. He thought about his mom.

“I think that’s probably why I do the stuff that I do with fans — losing somebody or going through something,” Bryson said. “Knowing that I could help them just by leaving an $80 ticket to make their whole year. I don’t even think twice about it. You want to help as many people as you can. My brother’s like that. My sister’s like that. I think it’s just kind of the way that we were raised.”

For years, Bryson said, other schools have offered his mom a job. The commute would be easier. But Shana has remained at Eldorado. Bryson received a $3.9 million signing bonus when the Phillies drafted him in 2019.

“It’s funny,” Shana said, “because my kids at school will be like, ‘Why are you still here?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, first of all, that’s his money. Like, he earned that. He worked for that.’ I would never expect Bryson to give me money, like ever. He did buy me a new car.”

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It was Shana’s birthday. Bryson surprised her with a Chevy Traverse. “It was just like my old car,” she said. “He’s so funny. He bought me the exact same car, but a newer version.” Shana could stop teaching and travel to watch Bryson play — or spend more time with Brennan, her oldest son, or her daughter, Breauna.

She keeps coming back to her kids at Eldorado.

“I just know that I make a difference here every day,” Shana said. “They may not have someone that pushes them or believes in them. There’s been a lot of failure in their life. I mean, my motto is you can do anything you want to do. I’ve always told my kids to dream big.”

The end of the year is so bittersweet! Some of these kids I have known since they were babies …. 🥹 lots of senior nights tonight! Prom this weekend, senior week next week, grad night and graduation 🎓🥹 #lovemykids pic.twitter.com/iCcZxCkiFG

— Shana Stott (@StottDbackmom) May 5, 2023

Shana didn’t have to push Bryson. “He’s a perfectionist and he doesn’t like to fail,” she said. He’s always set goals. He wrote them in a journal. He wanted to play varsity as a freshman. He wanted a scholarship to a Division I college. He wanted to make the Team USA Collegiate National squad. He wanted to be picked in the first round of the MLB Draft.

He accomplished all of it.

“You don’t know what your kids can do,” Shana said. “I don’t know. Who am I to tell him he can’t do it? I was there just to support him and do what I could do to help him along the way.”

Now, Shana likes watching Bryson sign autographs. He’s good at it. “He doesn’t like to walk away from kids,” Shana said. It makes her proud. She tells her kids — both at home and at school — to never forget where they come from.

“I tell him this,” Shana said, “all the time. ‘Yeah, it’s cool that you play Major League Baseball and you reached your goals.’ I love that for him because that’s been his dream. But my dream, as a parent, is you want your kids to turn out to be good people. If you can be anything in the world, just be kind. Because you never know what people are going through.”

(Top image: John Bradford / The Athletic / Photos: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images; Courtesy of Shana Stott) 

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