Shared Legacy: How A Father And Son Found Happiness

By Cory Mull - Milesplit

Danny McCray knew the moment would be one he would remember for a long time, perhaps through a lifetime even, so he pulled out his iPhone and stood up among a sea of nearly 5,000 people. He thumbed the screen and then pinched in. He pressed record.

A few hundred feed away, Bryce McCray stepped down into his blocks in Lane 4, wiping away the small beads of sweat around his arms.

He, too, knew this tiny fraction of time would be stored away in his head, though a principle difference presided over his thoughts: The thousands of faces around him at the Texas State Track and Field Championships couldn't control the outcome.

Only he could.

Seconds ticked by.

As the stadium in Austin fell to a hush, Danny pounced on what felt like his single opportunity to announce himself, in front of what felt like Bryce's most difficult challenge yet: An individual state championship in the highest classification of the country's most competitive state.

Now more than ever, he needed his son to hear his voice.

If only because he was thinking about history. Nearly 30 years to the day, Danny had been right there in Bryce's shoes, with a state championship on the line.

Danny had secured his own title in 1991 for Killeen Ellison, etching his name into the 400 meter record books in 46.24 seconds. Now he hoped his son would repeat the same fate.

He screamed at the top of his lungs.

"LET'S GO BRYCE."

Bryce closed his eyes for a heartbeat and wished for a perfect 46 seconds in the 300 meter hurdles.

The gun fired and the race started.

A new chapter in Danny McCray's life began when Bryce was born May 15, 2003, in Houston, Texas.

Danny was 29 at the time, unmarried. But he was ready to move on. The last decade had seen him accomplish nearly every wish he had ever dreamed as a child growing up in Aberdeen, Maryland; Landstuhl, Germany; and Killeen, Texas.

In the early 90s, he became the kind of prolific track and field and football recruit that big-time programs sought in droves. He dropped 20- and 46-second 400 meter races before that even seemed possible for a high schooler.

While at Texas A&M, he became an NCAA Champion in the 4x400 and 4x100 and a six-time All-American before turning pro and chasing the wild life of a track and field athlete.

He joined HSI, a professional track group, and traveled to places like Stuttgart, Germany; Catania, Italy; Paris, France; Maebashi, Japan; and Melbourne, Australia.

His exploits earned him a spot on World Championship relay teams and the United States' Olympic 4x400 team in Sydney in 2000. He won a gold medal at the World Championships in 1999, running for the United States' 4x400 team.

But when that life and those fast times eventually came back to earth, as all things do, the transition wasn't as easy, or immediately known. He first worked for an event-planning organization in Houston.

Then he met a woman and his life changed in an instant.

Eight months later, he stood outside the thick windows at the prenatal unit in Texas Women's Hospital alongside his father Nathaniel and his mother Estell and his best college friends, Curt Young and Danny Traylor.

He pressed his hands on the glass.

In some ways, he was at a crossroads. He wondered what his life would look like over the next 18 years.

The traditional hallmarks he had imagined for himself - a traditional marriage, a house on the corner with two kids - was now left from center.

"One of the things that bothered me the most of being a new parent was that my son wouldn't have the opportunity to grow up in a nuclear household like I did," Danny said, "so I always, to that degree, felt like a failure."

And yet, despite those reservations, he understood the significance of this new challenge.

He made a promise to himself, much like the one he made as he pursued greatness on the track in the decade previously.

There would be nothing he wouldn't let Bryce achieve.

As he craned his head and smiled through the hospital window, he saw a flash of himself in the young son before him.

"When I first became a dad, it was life-changing in the sense that it was the first time I ever felt the love for someone more than I felt for myself. I didn't know what it meant."

Bryce didn't understand what his father's legacy in track and field meant until high school.

He only knew that sports tied them together in some way.

He was the son of a Texas high school legend, an NCAA champion, an Olympian. Now Danny was a well respected coach.

When he was younger, Bryce leaned into the fact that he was 'Danny's kid.'

"I know it meant a lot for him to do this own thing. He respects my own path," Danny said. "But he's not intimidated by it. He has his own sights moving forward."

But in time, as a shift in forming his own identity began to take place, the weight of that realization was striking.

Was he ever going to get from underneath it?

"I know my dad had all that success, but a part of me wanted my own thing, too," Bryce said.

All fathers cast shadows on their sons, especially those with long histories. Some are bigger than others. But in Bryce's case it was a swath of ocean he had to navigate.

And it was especially noteworthy because Bryce wasn't a fast-bloomer.

He didn't run the 200m or 400m particularly fast as an eighth-grader, as his dad did, and he tended to ascend the hurdles like a pogo-stick rather than run through them when he first began.

On the flip side, there were no participation trophies in the McCray household.

While his father didn't have primary custody duties when Bryce was little, he still wanted to impart some sense of accountability.

"It's like he has to be good cop and bad cop," Bryce said.

But as he began to turn the corner as an athlete in his sophomore year, Bryce learned a hard lesson.

Statistics will tell you that just over half of all marriages end in divorce. But in Danny's case, the relationship he held with Veronique Connor was never fully-formed.

And so there were never really any preconceived agreements toward how the two would co-parent their son. What Danny ultimately found early on was a crisis in custodial duties.

As the courts stepped, he found himself on the outside looking in, without unlimited access to the child he always wanted to care for. But Danny knew that in order to change the future he had to take care of the present, so he forged a new career in medical sales in Louisiana.

The hope, he believed, was to eventually make it back to Houston. In the meantime, though, he commuted four hours back to Houston on the first, third and fifth Thursdays of every month.

That's where Bryce McCray's first memories were born. Inside a hotel room.

The big lobby, the pool, the games with his dad.

The pair would jump between twin beds in the hotel, shooting invisible lasers at one another like some magical Marvel movie.

"I remember my dad taking on the role of the villains," Bryce said.

As Bryce got older, Danny continued to try to find ways to make impacts in his son's life. Once he was given a promotion back to Houston, he moved to a home on the outskirts of Katy so he would be closer to Bryce.

Photo Credit: Cory Mull/MileSplit

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He started a football organization when Bryce was in the third grade. He called it the Stingrays.

"Honestly, it was a great way to spend time with him," Danny said. "That was primarily why I did it."

Danny had played football himself in Killeen; he had even been good enough to play for Texas A&M. On the other side, it wasn't just about fatherly duties.

He wasn't about to let coaches with little experience leave his son at risk, either. New information about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) science was being released in gobs during those mid 2010s.

Bryce joined the team, giving Danny another opportunity to spend time with his son.

Any way forward, Danny thought.

---

Missed Opportunities

Lessons have often hit Bryce the hardest. Often, they've they've come from Danny.

Sophomore year, it seemed like the lessons toppled over one another.

The first came on the track. Racing at the District 23 Championships in April, Bryce had his first big opportunity to qualify through the rounds and have a chance to punch his ticket to state.

But his District wasn't going to just let him coast. Houston Strake Jesuit's Caleb Cavanaugh was one of the top hurdlers in the state at the time. He had run 37.20 the previous season and finished sixth at state.

Danny knew this. He had been urging his son to remember the urgency of the situation.

And at first, Bryce did. As the race went off and he flew out of the blocks, Danny saw a side of his son that he had never seen before. He began to see a star form, an athlete capable of living in that moment.

Bryce covered hurdle six flawlessly, then glided over seven. But at eight, he fell, stammered to the finish and ended in third.

"I remember that feeling watching him," Danny said. "Man, he's moving. And then in a blink of an eye, he falls."

Hardly a few days later, with Area qualifying approaching, Bryce made his second mistake.

He was found running in the hallways away from administrators at George Ranch High School. Bryce had accumulated two tardies. A third would have sent him to detention. His decision to flee earned him in-school suspension for two days - right when he needed to be run to qualify.

Ultimately, his road to the Texas state championships was over.

Perhaps in those important hours after, a father's biggest test was forming. A son's world may have seemed like it was closing.

"He has to hear my voice when it comes to sports," Danny said. "He has to hear my voice when it comes to school work. He hears my voice when it comes to being an adult. It's repetitive.

"Even if there are things that provide merit, in his mind it will feel like a lecture all the time. He might think, 'Where will I escape?' I know he values my coaching. So now it's, 'I value the coaching, but I wish I would have a break. I value him as a dad but I need a break.'"

Photo Credit: JBG Images

---

As one opportunity closes, usually another door opens.

That's what Bryce found after his state championship bid as a sophomore ended. He would go on to win the 300mH at the TTFCA Meet of Champions, then later finished seventh at the Great Southwest Classic in a season-best time of 38.29.

By July, with Danny taking over full coaching duties with the Greater Houston Track Club, Bryce turned his full focus to the 400mH.

Not even Danny realized the strides his son would make over the next few weeks. At the AAU Junior Olympics, though, his jaw dropped just slightly.

Heading into the finals of the 400mH, Danny was almost ready to call it a season after his son broke 55 for the first time in the prelims.

"I remember saying to him, 'Man, Bryce, you good?' That 54.7 was, at that time, a really good performance. I thought he had given it his all and wasn't sure if he had anything left.

"But Bryce goes to me, 'Just watch, I'll show you something.' To me, sometimes kids have the bravado. They tell you what you want to hear. I didn't necessarily believe it."

In one swift moment, though, feelings of his own career came rushing back to him.

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Bryce absolutely unloaded on the race. He took no sections off as he powered through hurdle after hurdle, challenging Michigan's Tamaal Myers at every turn.

By the end, with a national championship on the line, Bryce dove to the line. He didn't win, but he finished in 52.69, which was the 20th best time in the country for the season and the top sophomore time overall. He was just two hundredths-of-a-second off from victory.

A few minutes later, Danny's phone rang.

His friend from the University of Houston, Leroy Burrell, was on the phone.

"He says to me, 'Danny, I'd like to have your permission to recruit your son,'" Danny said.

"And that moment, man, that was incredible. I had always wanted that opportunity for Bryce. He had asked me, 'Dad, am I ever going to get recruited?' And now here it was."

Time started to matter.

As the court appearances on custody added up, Danny wondered if he would ever see his son on a consistent basis.

In 2018, he still had non custodial parent visitation.

But by the beginning of Bryce's junior year, the courts gave Danny temporary primary custody and the ability to oversee Bryce's sports schedule.

Then one fateful day, it all changed.

Bryce remembers the car ride, a tear-filled journey that ended at Danny's house.

"I remember saying to him, 'It's over,'" Bryce said.

"I was just so happy. All this time and effort and all of these challenges," Danny said. "We were finally together."

"I said to him, 'Bryce, we're here.' Let's call it Son Day."

It was November 13, 2019. While there wasn't much time left, Bryce would finally be able to live with his dad full-time.

Bryce walked out of the car and father and son hugged.

Then they walked into the house and opened the doors to a new relationship.

With COVID erasing his entire junior year, Bryce was fully focused on his final path around the track as a senior.

He signed with the University of Georgia in November, then wet his feet with a few races over the indoor season, splitting 22.74 in the 200m and 49.95 in the 400m.

The real challenges were ahead.

At George Ranch, Bryce worked tirelessly each day on his hurdle craft. He ran just six races over the spring in events other than the 300mH.

Photo Credit: Cory Mull/MileSplit

- - - 

But he knew what his overall goal was: Win the state title.

His debut race saw an immediate PR of 37.08 at the Cy Springs Panthers Invitational.

Danny could see that focus forming. Bryce didn't lose a single race as he progressed into the state championships.

"He was 100-percent focused on the details," George Ranch head coach Nick Ollivierre said. "Whether it was his start, the fifth, sixth or seventh hurdles."

He was ranked among the top 300 meter hurdlers in the nation from start to finish.

But Bryce knew that states was just something different entirely ... you only have a chance to make history once.

"Honestly, it's one step at time," Bryce said weeks before the state championships. "Whatever I'm doing right now,I'm focusing on the 300mH. I'm not thinking about anything else until the season is over with."

Danny thinks of his late father Nathaniel often.

He died at 62 due to congenital heart failure, when Bryce was just over a year old. That death still impacts him to this day.

When Danny looks at his life, he can't help but feel a physical connection to his father.

Nathaniel grew up in the Civil Rights era in Birmingham. He had walked in protests alongside Martin Luther King. A career in the Army saw Nathaniel rise up in rank before he would pursue his education late in life. He earned his undergraduate and masters degrees before Danny ever finished college at A&M in 1997.

Nathaniel was a disciplinarian. Danny likely got those traits from his father, too. But the other side Danny always wanted to impart to his own son with this sense of intellectual control.

For a long time, he insisted on these things, had begged for Bryce to listen to him.

But a few weeks before the state championships, that whole idea was challenged when Bryce was in a major car accident.

He had fallen asleep at the wheel and his Honda Civic had struck another vehicle in an opposing lane on a major highway.

The car had spun out of control before stopping in the middle of the road, the engine block sunken, the left and front panels of the car mashed together.

It presented a unique obstacle for both Bryce and Danny.

Was he listening? Had he gotten it?

Danny felt love for his son to be alive in that moment, but he also felt his father inside of him. How could you have been so careless? Why hadn't you taken the steps to make sure you got home safe?

"As a parent, you just want to see him OK, you just want to hold him," Danny said. "And so, much like anything else. Now, once you find out that he's OK, you get a shift in emotions. Now you're trying to figure out, 'What in the world happened?' Then you find out."

Bryce had been fine after the accident, so much so that he was able to run at a qualifying meet and win. But the tense build-up between him and his father led him to stay with his mother just down the road for a few days.

Back at home, Danny had to combat this feeling of disappointment. Had he failed as a father? Why were these things still happening?

"The other driver had a family. That man walked home. You think about all these things," Danny said. "You can't help it ... it's tough when it's your voice he's heard so much. You wonder what's escaping because it's simply coming from your voice."

As time moved its arms around the clock, though, Danny began to realize that life moves as it's supposed to.

His role as a father was to accept it, and to continue influence his son wherever those situations led.

A few meters into the state championship race, Bryce was trailing.

Over in Lane 9, Jaden Patterson of Atascocita was off to a rollicking start, and he flew over the first hurdle like it was chopped wood.

Bryce possibly sensed this.

He pressed just slightly and then saw the result: His trail leg landed awkwardly, nearly forcing him into the adjacent lane.

It was a wake up call. By hurdle three, he was even. By four, he was out in front.

As he turned the corner on five and saw the finish, Bryce could see his entire career, and maybe his life, in front of him - the stops and starts in track, the relationship with his father, the near-wins.

All Bryce wanted in that moment was to run a perfect race.

He took off at six and flew ahead.

At seven, he nicked a hurdle and gave Denzel Hinds breathing room.

The eighth and final hurdle was his moment, his chance to finally finish this thing off.

Bryce eased up slightly, went over it with his left, and then was near dead even with Hinds with 5 meters to go.

With his last breath he leaned forward with all his might and somersaulted over the line, falling to his feet.

At this point, Danny was still filming in his seat. The sweat was glistening off the back of his neck. He had a close group of friends all around him.

He knew he needed to move. He jumped from his seat and began walking down the concrete stairs at Mike Myers Stadium toward the finish line.

A pall came over the crowd as the official results came over the scoreboard.

Danny watched along the railing, his iPhone still set on record.

A number flashed across: 36.27.

Bryce had won; Danny's son had done it. He had actually run the nation's fastest time in 2021.

Bryce raised his tired arms in victory. Perhaps the weight of the moment hit Danny like a 20-pound brick.

"BRYCE, BRYCE!"

"COME HERE BRYCE... BRYCE, COME HERE!"

His son walked over, slowly but surely, the endorphins still racing through his body.

Danny held his hand out, as if he was going to shake Bryce's hand hard.

But then in a moment he pulled him in.

Danny hugged him hard, like a father seeing this son for the first time. His phone went to the side. He held that hug for what felt like forever. Bryce embraced his dad, truly, without thought.

For a few seconds, they stayed there.

"I'm proud of you," Danny said.

"I'm proud of of you."

A few seconds lapsed. Bryce almost forgot where he was. The 300mH field walked over.

Fans surrounding this moment began to clap.

"That's LOVE MAN," a spectator began to say.

"THAT'S A FATHER'S LOVE."