Catching Community with Ethan Bryan

Ethan Bryan has played catch since he was a kid. Now that he is a student development specialist and professional development team builder at Community Partnership of the Ozarks, the hobby has picked up steam—he even wrote a book about it! It started with a challenge from his daughters to play catch daily for a year. He met more than 500 people in this pursuit, inspiring A Year of Playing Catch. After Zondervan published the book in 2020, readers have been inspired to do the same. With CPO, Bryan partners with local schools to play catch with students and discuss life skills. To him, catch is about fostering connections. “If people would carry around gloves like we carry around cell phones,” he says, “life would be a lot better.”