Devon Price, Blake Lundy, Emily Runser and Christian Rupe are all seniors at Ohio Northern, but they seem worlds apart. Price just finished his last season on the Polar Bear football team. Lundy and Runser are engaged, working towards degrees in Communication and Sociology, respectively. Rupe is approaching his final season running track for ONU.
While they might seem different, however, they are all linked by one common trait.
They are all parents.
They are connected by Sir, Swayzee, and Ava, who have changed their lives forever. They have matured quicker than most, having to deal with the pressures of being parents at such an early age. Here are their stories.
Devon Price, father of Devon “Sir” Price
I interviewed Devon Price just a few days before ONU hosted Marietta in a night game. When I mentioned to Devon that I wanted to talk to his mother for the article, he casually told me to come down to the field between offensive possessions, get his attention on the sideline, and he would show me where his mother sits.
Simple enough.
Dawn Price sat three rows up on the 50-yard line, bouncing Devon’s son on her knee. Devon’s son is also named Devon Price (he is not a ‘junior’ because the two have different middle names), although he is affectionately called “Sir” by his family. They were trying to keep warm, as temperatures dipped into the thirties. Sir wore a Superman hat and a confident grin that looked eerily similar to one his father would wear.
Dawn mentioned that Sir has only missed one of Devon’s games. Sir is three years old, as he was born when Devon was a freshman at Ohio Northern (Devon played one year at the University of Toledo before transferring to ONU). Dawn talked about that time for not only Devon, but herself.
“It was probably a shock at first, he was probably more scared than anything,” Dawn said. “But I was a young mother and our family supported me, so our whole family supported him.”
Dawn gave birth to Devon when she was just 20 years old, which not only prevented her from attending college, but also kept her from participating in the 1992 Olympics. She had qualified as an Olympic swimmer when she was 14 years old, but didn’t go because she was too young. She qualified again when she was 18, but when she found out that she was pregnant, she gave up her swimming dreams to focus on raising Devon.
Because his mother was in a similar situation at that age, Dawn gave Devon this advice: stay the course.
“She let me know that it’s not going to be easy. She lets me know that financial troubles can happen at any time, even if I have a job,” Devon said. “But the biggest thing she taught me was to chase my dream. Being away from my son at that time, it would have been easy to make the decision
to give up football and go back home.”
While there seem to be few young parents at ONU, Devon says that he would have been less of an anomaly in his hometown, inner-city Toledo.
“At home, there were people who were pregnant in junior high and high school, so it was something that I was used to,” Devon said. “It’s kind of the opposite, [at ONU] and at home. Here, nobody has a kid, and at home, everybody has a kid.”
Devon is no longer with Sir’s mother, Quala Loggins, whom he knew from high school (they both graduated from Start High School) and Devon’s first year at the University of Toledo. However, Devon says that they still maintain a mutual relationship.
“I’m not with her, but we have a good relationship. We’re able to communicate on a daily basis and we make sure that everything Sir needs is taken care of,” Devon said.
Sir lives in Toledo, under the care of both Quala’s and Devon’s mothers when Quala is at work, and Devon gets to see him mainly on the weekends. While Devon would like to see Sir more often, he also has a lot on his plate;
he is not only a senior Sports Management major, but he is also the Head of Public Relations on the Black Student Union’s Executive Board.
Devon also set the record for career receiving yards in ONU history this fall, with 3,157 yards over four years. He also has
the most receptions in school history. He helped lead the Polar Bears to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, capping off a remarkable 9-3 season.
After the team’s first loss, a one-point heartbreaker to Baldwin Wallace, Devon was down. He, like the rest of his teammates, felt frustrated and upset. But seeing Sir after the game helped him see the bigger picture; not just in football, but in life itself.
“I was pretty upset that day, but seeing his smile after the game made me cheer up right away,” Devon said. “He let me know that life is bigger than a game of football.”
Blake Lundy and Emily Runser, parents of Swayzee
Blake Lundy was at a Kohl’s in Lima when he got the call.
“Emily had been sick for about a week, and we couldn’t figure
out why. She wasn’t feeling good; she kept getting cold chills and she was always hot,” Lundy said. “We couldn’t figure it out, and we were talking to our friends at lunch and one of them asks, ‘What if you’re pregnant?’ That sparked Emily to take a pregnancy test.
I was in Kohl’s when I got the phone call and she was in tears because she was so scared.”
Emily Runser was pregnant. She was 19 years old, a sophomore at ONU. She and Lundy, also a sophomore, were in a serious relationship at the time.
“It was really scary,” Runser said. “I didn’t know who to tell, but after a while it calmed down. I talked to my brother and it all sunk in, and when I accepted it, I was really happy.”
For Lundy, the realization was life-changing.
“Not gonna lie, you kind of find out what kind of person you’re going to be when you find out you’re going to be a parent,” Lundy said. “My first thought was, ‘How much do abortions cost?’ And now, it sickens me that I even thought of something like that.”
Runser gave birth to Swayzee during the first semester of her junior year; Swayzee is currently 14 months old. The couple is now engaged, with the wedding set for July 30th. Lundy is a senior double-majoring in Communications and Public Relations, while Runser is a senior Sociology major.
Looking back on those days following the news that Runser was pregnant, Lundy recalls the struggle of telling his grandfather, who was the main father figure in his life.
“Calling my grandfather was petrifying. I called him and hung up four times before I had the urge to call him and say, ‘Hey grandpa, I need to tell you something,’” Lundy said. “But, as scared as I was, my grandpa’s reaction was perfect.”
“I said, ‘Hey grandpa, I have to tell you something. Emily’s pregnant.’ [There was] a few seconds pause, and after that he goes, ‘Well, your life is going
to be a lot different now. You’re going to have to take on a whole new level of responsibility, are you ready to commit to that?’ I said yes, and he said that he had full faith in me.”
“Telling my grandpa was the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Lundy said.
For Lundy and Runser, their lives changed forever after Swayzee was born. They learned very quickly who their friends were once they became parents.
“My closest friends are still my closest friends, and they will remain my closest friends until, probably, the end of time,” Lundy said. “Then, I had a lot of friends who were my friends. When you have a baby, your priorities change. Beforehand, I could hang out with all of my friends all the time, and do whatever I wanted. Then I had a baby, and now my top priorities are Emily and Swayzee.”
“You quickly find out who your friends are, [the ones] that actually care about being your friend, not just having someone to drink with,” Lundy said. “You can sense the distance now.”
But in the long run, Lundy and Runser could not be happier with Swayzee. When you talk to them about their baby, their eyes light up with excitement.
“I look back now, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Swayzee is the most perfect baby I have ever met,” Lundy says with a grin and a bias that only parents have.
For Runser, the sentiment is similar. She believes that Swayzee has impacted her life positively, in more ways than one.
“I feel like [having Swayzee] has put me in a better place, because it’s helped me grow up so much and realize that I need to do better and be more mature,” Runser said. “It makes me want to push for my goals even more.”
Christian Rupe, father of Ava
Those who know Christian Rupe now know that he is focused.
He has changed a lot since his freshman year of college, and most of that change was prompted by becoming a father. Once he heard that his former girlfriend, Haley Twine, was pregnant during March of his sophomore year, he flipped a mental switch.
“I partied quite a bit up until the middle of my sophomore year,” Rupe said. “But once I found out, I was like, ‘It’s time to hang up the gloves. I’m done.’”
“I was a little worried, because I wasn’t too mature. But once I actually had her in my arms, I feel like I completely changed as a person, right then. Comparing myself from sophomore year to now, I’m a totally different person. Even my parents say that.”
Rupe is a senior Manufacturing Technology major, and he is also a key component to ONU’s track
team. In the 2015 outdoor track season, Rupe had the fastest 100 and 200-meter dash times on the team, and was also a part of the fastest 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams.
Along with being a student-athlete, he is also a father. He has a daughter named Ava, who is now 1 1⁄2 years old.
Rupe says that becoming a father has made him mature quickly, and it made him start applying himself inside and outside the classroom.
“I felt like, how would I be able to support her without having a job? But then, when I actually applied myself, I felt comfortable knowing that I would be able to support my daughter,” Rupe said.
Rupe has interned at Chrysler in Toledo the past two summers, which not only allows him to pay for Ava’s needs, but also gain valuable experience in the field of manufacturing technology.
“They pay really well, and that’s how I’m able to support [Ava],” Rupe said. “I work from sun up to sun down in the summer time, then I go home and spend as much time with her as possible.”
During the school year, Ava lives in Toledo with either Twine or one of the grandparents. Rupe gets to see her occasionally on the weekends, but he wishes that he could have more time with her.
“I miss her every day. I have pictures on my phone, and I just stare at them wishing that I could [be with her],” Rupe said.
Rupe believes that not only is he more mature because of Ava, but he is also more caring. He says that he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose her, and that perspective has made him more grateful as well.
“I’m a lot more caring, I’m a lot more genuine of a person,” Rupe said. “I don’t take things for granted anymore, because you never know when something might come up or you might lose something.”
For Devon Price, Blake Lundy, Emily Runser and Christian Rupe, becoming a parent in college was a wake-up call. It made them mature quicker, become smarter decision-makers, and gain a perspective on life that so few have at their age.