Positively focused on future: Hard work, sunny outlook powers Shadle senior Niles
To Shadle Park senior Ryan Niles, there’s no such thing as a glass half-empty. He’s a young man whose relentlessly positive attitude has impressed everyone around him.
“Ryan is just a really good guy,” said his varsity football coach, Jim Mace. “He was a captain this year on our team and has been a great leader with the other guys. He’s always bought into the idea that he’s going to do his job, and his character and leadership ability have helped him make the most of his experience here.”
Ryan is an all-around kind of guy, listing wrestling, tennis, and advanced theater on his résumé, in addition to football. He has done everything he could to expand his horizons, including the leadership class and working with incoming freshmen “to show them that high school isn’t as scary as they think it might be.” He was planning to go out for track and field this spring until an injury and COVID-19 derailed that idea.
About that injury: He was hiking at the Bowl and Pitcher in mid-February, fell off a cliff, and suffered a compound fracture in his back. He was in the hospital for two weeks and outpatient therapy for a while longer, then returned to school for a week before Washington schools were shut down for the year.
“I’m very optimistic,” he said, “and I wouldn’t be where I am if I hadn’t been a hard worker. I try to think of ways to make things go right. If I don’t, I won’t get anything done. My mom and dad taught me that when you get knocked down, you get up and fight for what you want.
“I think that I’m defined by my work ethic. I’ve had a positive experience with everything I’ve done at Shadle. I’ve gone all-out to make these the best years of my life, and high school has opened me up and showed me who I might become. I’ve made a lot of friends and I know what I want to do with my future.”
That future will start next year at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, where Ryan’s father resides. He will be enrolled in the Zoo Animal Technology program, an interest that was nurtured last summer in Florida at Busch Gardens in Tampa. He talked with a zookeeper there about the animals and the Santa Fe program, and began to check it out.
Some of Ryan’s best experiences in high school have come almost by accident. He never intended to be involved in theater, but after participating in an improv club during his freshman year, he was recruited by the drama instructor. The same thing happened in wrestling, where his defensive line coach, also the Shadle wrestling coach, convinced him to give it a shot. And it turned out to be, he said, probably the most fun he had in a sport.
“Shadle Park helped to form me into a person who is able to handle whatever comes at me,” he said. “I hope I’ve left Shadle as an example of how a person should be, to work hard and have fun. I always try to look forward to opportunities instead of back at my mistakes, because there’s a lot more future for me than there is past.”