One of the best parts of Jeff and Mandy Biros’s week is ‘Senior Sunday,’ when all the Gunter High School parents post throwback pictures of the Class of 2025. In half of their photos, their son, Bryce, is running around with his childhood best friend, Garrin Goetz. Mandy and Goetz’s mother went to school together, and Jeff jokes their two sons were a pair of rugrats.

Now Goetz is almost bigger than Jeff when he plops down next to the Biros family. He and Bryce are seniors on Gunter’s back-to-back state championship football team. All those baseball games, sleepovers and memories from the freshman football team together have culminated in one final season for the boys. 

“I’m sad that it’s going to be over,” Jeff said. “I don’t want it to end.”

Goetz is an offensive guard and defensive lineman. Bryce hasn’t played a down. At age 8, he was diagnosed with Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT), a neurodegenerative disorder that affects 1 in 100,000 people. Bryce is wheelchair-bound and almost non-verbal but entirely present. Even though he can’t respond in detail, Goetz knows Bryce registers everything he tells him on Friday night.

“Every time he comes into the locker room before the games, I always go and say what’s up,” Goetz said. “Even when we’re on the field I go up and talk to him, let him know how the game’s going and how the other team is. He’s always a great person to talk to.”

Gunter head coach Jake Fieszel describes Bryce as a cornerstone of the Class of 2025. He’s in the locker room, on the sidelines, and even calls the coin toss. One season, he went 10-0.

“Bryce provides a unique perspective on things,” Fieszel said. “When you’ve got someone who’s had some things taken away from them that they love, and they still have a fantastic attitude every day…”

He trails off. It’s hard to talk about.

Before Bryce Biros’ annual wellness checkup, his second-grade teacher pulled Jeff and Mandy aside and showed them their son’s handwriting. At the beginning of the year it was great. By his last sample, the writing was shaky, almost like an old man’s.

Jeff and Mandy brought up the concern at the doctor’s office. The doctor looked at Bryce on the table, his body swaying. He’d walked in with a gait.

“Does he always do that?” The doctor asked.

Bryce was the first child. The Biros’s didn’t know it wasn’t normal. Yes, they said.

The next day, the doctor called and said she’d been thinking about Bryce and researching what could’ve caused the swaying. She advised them to go to Children’s Medical Center Dallas for some tests. She’d already sent the referral.

The Children’s visit took hours. Every test came back negative. The doctors had noticed the gait but couldn’t pinpoint what it was. In the last hour, something came back. It was AT. Mandy told them she used CVS Pharmacy so they could call in the medication. It’s not that simple, they said.

AT is a condition where the cerebellum deteriorates. The cerebellum, sometimes called the ‘little brain,’ coordinates movement, balance, posture, speech, writing and all motor skills. AT rips those functions away, weakening the respiratory, nervous and immune systems. And it’s progressive. Bryce would be in a wheelchair by 10 years old. 

Mandy was in denial. Bryce had just played baseball last week, although he missed the ball more frequently. But the doctors were spot on. Bryce started falling and needing more support. At 10, he was wheelchair-bound.

Jeff had coached Bryce’s baseball and soccer teams and would’ve stepped up as his football coach. Bryce was so excited to start playing, but now he couldn’t walk. 

“Your mindset changes when you’re a coach, when you go, ‘Well, ok, he’s not going to be playing that, so we’ll coach him doing something else. We’ll figure something out. What’s next?’” Jeff said. “You just keep moving on; that’s how that goes. From that to video games and whatever else we want to do, collect Pokémon cards.”

The Biros family needed a new house because Bryce’s bedroom and playroom were upstairs. Their family friends, the Goetzes, suggested Gunter. They’d bought land in the small town and raved about the school system. The family built their own wheelchair-compatible house with wider doorways and a bathroom for Bryce to wheel directly into the shower.  

The house could’ve been built in any town. The Gunter community has made it a home. During an eighth-grade football game against Whitewright, the players organized a touchdown run for Bryce. Garrin Goetz, his friend since birth, pushed him down the field. 

Those eighth-graders are now seniors, and Mandy and Jeff have been in the stands every Friday night since watching their son live out a Texas high school football career. 

“That’s when you see him smile the biggest,” Mandy said.

Mandy, who’s spent 21 years in education, was hired as a Gunter High School counselor this school year. After years of commuting to McKinney, she’s in the building for Bryce’s senior year. And while Mandy always knew the team’s love for Bryce extended beyond the field, these first three weeks of school have confirmed it. Everyone sees the state championships, but now she sees the fist bumps in the hallway that mean so much more to her. Jeff took Bryce to meet up with the guys at Buffalo Wild Wings in Sherman a few weeks back for their fifth annual fantasy football draft.

“That shows heart from these kids that are over here lifting 300 pounds,” Jeff said. “They’ve got a soft side in there too.” 

After this season, most of the boys will go to college. Bryce will stay in Gunter. He plans to master the Madden video game and maybe enter some competitions. And his family will still go to all the Gunter football games on Friday nights. But it won’t be the same without the friends he played fantasy football with, who pushed him for a touchdown. 

At one point, Mandy says Bryce really feels like he’s part of the team, to which Fieszel quickly interjects that he is. 

“That’s true bravery,” Fieszel said. “You think about kids that make a big catch or a big block in a game, you’re like, ‘Oh, wow!’ But that’s real life.”

Bryce Biros doesn’t get to pretend he’s on the Gunter football team on Friday nights. He always has been.