Best Local Athletes

March 23, 2008

There was no clear stand-out for best athlete this year—there was one or two votes for scores of athletes across the region, so Northern Express chose Traverse City West senior J.T. Hogan who “gets life,” and we’re not just talking football. There’s also Helene Dryden, a junior at St. Francis High School, who says she doesn’t feel fearless on her snowboard, but you’d never know it by looking at her.
Here’s a profile on each.
J.T. Hogan: connected & confident
When J.T. Hogan walks up for an interview in the Traverse City West library, you think—wow, this guy does not look or sound like a quarterback. He’s a skinny guy and not the least bit arrogant, and that’s despite nailing two records this year – throwing a record number of touchdown passes (15) and throwing the most passing yards (1,500).
“And here’s a coincidence,” he said. “Fifteen was the high school jersey number of my dad.”
For J.T. Hogan, everything is connected—his family, football, his faith, and his grandma who first raised his dad and four other kids and then had to turn around and raise Hogan and his two younger sisters.
Hogan’s mother abandoned the family when he was nine years old, overwhelmed by alcoholism and a huge tax bill owed to the IRS. Three years later, when Hogan was in sixth grade at Silver Lake Elementary, his father died of cancer. He and his two younger sisters moved in with his grandma and they faced life with prayer and strength.
“I had two people counting on me, and I had to step up to the plate,” Hogan said.
It helped that his grandma didn’t parent with the “flow” method—go to bed as soon as your homework is done. “She says, you’re in bed by 9, whether your homework is finished or not. She’s very loving and caring, but she wants things done her way.”
Hogan was featured in a Traverse City Record-Eagle article in October just before a face off with Traverse City Central (which West won). Since then, he’s been promised scholarships by the Traverse City Twilight Rotary Club and the Traverse City Elks Club. “They told me to get whatever grants and scholarships I could, and they’d supplement the rest,” he said.
Hogan said he’ll probably attend a Michigan college, but he doesn’t plan on playing football. He doesn’t believe he could never make it to the pros because he lacks the size.
Although that’s likely true, Hogan makes up with mental what he lacks in muscle mass.
He explained that about a week before each game last fall, he’d study tapes of the opposing team, watching three or four games. He’d compare notes with other members of the offensive team and adjust his strategy on the field as he saw fit.
“I always heard the quarterback is the best athlete on the team, and by no means was I the best. But I was stubborn. It was my way or the highway,” he said. “A lot of people don’t realize there’s a lot that goes on between the huddle and walking to the scrimmage line. I have a map in my head of our next play and where all our players are, and then I’ll scan the other team and their configuration and figure in my head where I’m going to throw the ball.”
Hogan said he’s interested in a coaching career and plans to major in sports administration in college.
But right now, he’s coping with family challenges. His grandma had part of her foot amputated two weeks ago, and Hogan has had to make meals, keep the house clean, do the the laundry, and get his two sisters, ages 10 and 13, off to school. He’s exhausted by nightfall, at which point he begins his homework. “It isn’t a cakewalk by any means—I’m taking AP physics, AP psychology, and college calculus. Luckily, my sisters live on my every word, which is nice. It’s really hard right now, and I’m not sure how my grandma is going to do with a cane once she’s back on her feet.”
Hogan said his faith has been huge in his life. When asked if he wonders why God has thrown him such tough curveballs, Hogan says no.
“When I pray, I say, keep it coming on me and nobody else because I can handle it, and I know other people who can’t handle it. A break-up with their girlfriend or a parents’ divorce, and it breaks their world. But I’ve been though a lot, and I know I can take all of it.”

Helene Dryden: fearless on the slopes
Two weeks ago, Helene Dryden thought she had kissed good-bye her chances of winning a snowboarding contest at the Burton Amateur Series at Boyne Highlands. That’s because Helene (pronounced uh-LEN) wiped out in the terrain park during a warm-up run. After attacking a rail, she slipped and slammed down on her back. The fall knocked the wind out of her. She coughed up blood and was so shaken that the ski patrol gave her a toboggan ride down the mountain.
But after being checked out for internal injuries, the ski patrol said she was good to go. She planned on just watching her friends compete in the half pipe competition, but since they hadn’t started yet, she took a couple of practice runs, felt okay, and decided to go for it.
She performed a 360, a 540 and some well-placed mid-air snowboard grabs. To her surprise she won first place and a $1,000 check. She had never competed in a half pipe competition before. Her specialty is “slope style,” which involves doing tricks on the terrain park.
Now she’s one of eight amateur girls in the country invited to compete at the U.S. Open 2008 Snowboarding Championships this month in Vermont. She doesn’t know if she’ll go—she’s already slated to compete at a national competition in Colorado (the United States of America Snowboard Association) during the first week of April. Dryden is ranked third in the country in the slope style category for her age group.
Dryden fears if she goes to both competitions, she’ll miss too much school, plus there’s the cost factor.
Dryden credits her skill in sports, in part, to genetics. She comes from a family of athletes and began skiing at the age of three. Her uncle, Nick Nixon, was a Junior National Champion, and a skier on the pro circuit, and her grandma, Claire Nixon, still bombs down the ski hill at Boyne at the age of 83. Her dad, Jack Dryden, was a high school soccer star.
Helene has spent her childhood summers on Cedar Lake where she’s perfected her tricks on water skis and wakeboards with cousins Rockwell and Durand Nixon of Petoskey, great athletes in their own right.
Dryden also plays organized sports—soccer and high school basketball in the past for St. Francis High School. In fact, as a sophomore last year, she scored more soccer goals (34) than any other girl in Northern Michigan. She plays for a combined girl’s team with teammates drawn from St. Francis and Traverse City Christian.
Dryden performs stunts on her snowboard that very few girls can. She was spotted at the age of 13 by an Atomic representative, who offered her a company sponsorship. “Unfortunately, my Atomic rep got fired, and I got fired at the same time.”
Despite looking fearless on the slopes, Dryden said she has to deal with that quaking feeling in the stomach just like anyone else. “I think growing up around my family, all this came naturally for awhile, but I got to a certain point, a certain age, and I became afraid of things. I have to overcome that every time and work things out. I don’t think you ever get over the fear.”
But over the years, Dryden said she’s perfected the art of falling softly and has learned to focus more on the reward of pulling off a trick than the pain of wiping out. Dryden said she’s interested in going further with snowboard competitions, but not necessarily training for the Olympics. “There are just too many things I’d like to do. I’m not sure if I’d really want to focus on just one thing for months and months and months.”