Spanish Fort's Tyler Brentzel cheats grim prognosis, proves 'God performs miracles'

Janet Brentzel didn’t know exactly what the doctor meant 18 years ago in the minutes after her son, Tyler, was born.
What she does remember perfectly is the phrase one of the doctors used.
“Are you going to call it?” she recalled.
If you didn’t watch “ER” back then or “Grey’s Anatomy” today, that usually means a doctor is preparing to pronounce someone dead.
They didn’t “call it” on April 8, 1997, and Tyler Brentzel is now preparing to play college football.
“That is my one vivid memory,” Janet said. “I didn’t know what it meant. I remember thinking, ‘Are they going to call another hospital or something?’ I am kind of glad I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
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Tyler endured a complicated delivery, termed shoulder dystocia. Basically, one of his shoulders remained stuck behind Janet’s pubic bone. After birth, it took Tyler five minutes to take his first breath.
He had a nerve injury, a broken scapula and collarbone and a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Today, he is a 6-foot-1, 265-pound senior, who helped Spanish Fort win pair of Class 5A state football championships, and is rated No. 3 academically in his class.
Brentzel is a regional winner in the Bryant-Jordan Scholarship’s achievement category, which honors teens who have overcome personal obstacles to excel academically and athletically. He has already won $3,500 in scholarship money and could win more at the statewide Bryant-Jordan banquet, set for April 13 in Birmingham.
“That is the great reward of coaching high school football, watching stories like Tyler Brentzel’s,” said former Toro coach Mark Freeman, now head coach at Thompson High in Alabaster. “All that Tyler went through and had to deal with, I don’t think he ever missed a practice.
“He worked as hard as anyone we had on the team. We were successful at Spanish Fort because of people like Tyler. He is a great kid with a great family and was a really solid part of our program.”
Brentzel is finishing his final months at Spanish Fort High and has signed a football scholarship with the Florida Institute of Technology, a Division II school in Melbourne, Fla., where he plans to study chemical engineering.
His story – and that of his family – is one of perseverance and courage.
THE BIRTH
Tyler is the second of three Brentzel children. He has two sisters -- Chelsea, 22, and Mackenzie, 16.
He was born three days early because doctors told Janet and husband Brian that Tyler was getting big. There were no signs anything was out of the ordinary, although the birth was anything but ordinary.
Tyler was stuck for nearly 15 minutes, Janet estimated. That was just the beginning of the nightmare.
“He was born in dead silence,” Janet said of the delivery that happen when the family lived in Greensburg, Penn.
“Obviously, I knew babies were supposed to cry, but there was nothing. No sound. It was awful. It took almost a full five minutes before he took a breath.”
The birth was so traumatic and emotions were running so high, Brian was asked to leave the room.
“I didn’t know if he was going to be OK,” he said. “I didn’t know if Janet was going to be OK. He obviously is our second child. The first delivery was really smooth. This time, I just remember being scared. That was the biggest thing.”
Finally, Tyler started breathing. That was one (big) hurdle down.
THE PROGNOSIS
Tyler was born at 2:12 p.m.
When Janet held him for the first time, she noticed his left arm was pinned to his shirt.
“The nurse said his arm was a little hurt and the doctor would be in to talk with us,” she said. “It seemed like we waited and waited and no one came.”
When afternoon turned into early evening, Brian decided to make a quick trip home and shower.
While he was gone, the doctor arrived.
“He said Tyler had something called Erb’s Palsy,” Janet remembered. “The doctor said he would never move his left arm, that he would carry it the rest of his life. Then the pediatrician came in and said he would probably be a child with cerebral palsy because he went without oxygen for a period of time. They said if he developed to age 3-to-5 mentally that would be good for him.”
When Brian returned, he got the same news.
“I was upset,” he said of the prognosis. “I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think it was true. I just thought there was no way this could be real.”
The Brentzels stayed in the hospital two nights and then went home.
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS
Janet and Brian spent the first few painful nights at home without much sleep.
They wondered how they could help their newborn and what his future might look like.
“We were researching, trying to find out what was wrong and how we could fix it,” Janet said. “We had everyone praying for him.”
When Tyler was 3 months old, his parents took him to Texas Children’s Hospital to see specialist Dr. John Laurent for his shoulder injury. By then, they already had started to discount the cerebral palsy diagnosis.
“I could look in his eyes, and I knew he would respond to me,” Janet said. “What they were telling me didn’t seem to make sense. We didn’t think he had a problem in that regard.”
The shoulder was another story. For the first four years of Tyler’s life, he did physical therapy five days a week.
Doctors also performed some techniques in an effort to stimulate nerve growth. Still, there was no movement at all in his left arm for the first eight months of his life.
Little by little, Tyler’s arm began to move, even if he didn’t have full use of it.
GROWING UP
Tyler developed a love for sports at an early age.
He started playing T-ball, then moved on to basketball. He had some limitations, but they didn’t stop him.
“Tyler always found a way, no matter what the activity was, to get it done,” Brian said.
After baseball and basketball came a desire to play football in the first grade.
“I was like, ‘There is no way he is going to play football,’” Janet said. “Brian was like, ‘He’ll be fine. He is bigger than most kids anyway.’ So we let him play. I was worried every game.”
Tyler wore No. 98 for the South Greensburg Bulldogs.
Though he was bigger than most children his age, Tyler rotated at running back for the team. He was in love.
“After that first year, he played every year,” Janet said. “He absolutely loved football. He loved the Steelers and Pitt football. Of course, even then, I didn’t really think he would play in high school.”
TORO NATION
The Brentzels moved from Pennsylvania to South Carolina and then to Spanish Fort when Tyler was a freshman in high school.
He continued playing football, first on the school’s freshman team, then on the junior varsity squad. He increased his work in the weight room, which proved challenging because his left arm remained considerably weaker than his right.
“There were some things I just couldn’t do, but I worked at it,” Tyler said.
He used special equipment in some cases to match what teammates were doing.
Brentzel played some varsity games as a sophomore as the Toros won the state title. He started at right guard as a junior and a senior. The team repeated as 5A state champs in 2013 and lost in the Class 6A semifinals last fall.
“I try to never worry about my arm,” he said. “I don’t really take notice of it. I’m not really a person who thinks of the past. I’m a progressive person. I had grown up with it. That’s all I knew. I guess I thought it was normal. I didn’t know how my arm was supposed to feel. I just know how it felt.”
Chris Fancher, Spanish Fort’s offensive line coach for the last two seasons, took notice of Brentzel’s drive.
“He worked harder and longer than most and had a drive that was fierce and enthusiastic, all while taking honors and AP level classes throughout his academic career,” Fancher wrote in a letter to the Bryant-Jordan committee.
“Without fail, he has met every challenge with insurmountable determination and fortitude. No mountain or challenge was too big for him to conquer. He never knew he had limitations placed upon him, and he soared past any expectations of anyone who knew of his condition.”
Tyler carries a 4.23 weighted GPA, good for third in his class of 256. He serves as president of his Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter and is a member of the National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, the Scholar’s Bowl team and Project Outreach.
“I believe Tyler will be a success no matter what he chooses to do in life,” science teacher Beth Hodge wrote to the Bryant-Jordan committee. “I do not believe he will measure success in how much money he will make or what kind of car he will ultimately drive.
“Tyler will measure success in how much happiness he brings to others, to his family and to himself.”
THE AMAZING RIDE
Brian and Janet can only look back now and smile.
“I would have never guessed Tyler would start two years for a high school football power,” Brian said. “I would never have thought that. I just wanted him to be healthy. Now, he’s going to play college football. Amazing.”
Janet, tears in her eyes, puts it even more simply.
“When someone asks me if I think God performs miracles, I say, ‘Oh, yes,’” she said. “I know first hand.”