'One-eyed wonder' Nicholas Bremer thriving for Hilliard Davidson boys bowling team
Nicholas Bremer has a response at the ready whenever anyone asks him about life with one eye.
“What’s it like having two?” the Hilliard Davidson senior usually retorts.
“I don’t know what that’s like,” he said. "This is what I’ve been given.”
Such a conversation with Bremer, who lost his right eye to retinoblastoma before he turned 1 and now is on his third glass replica, is infrequent, perhaps surprisingly so.
Bremer, one of Davidson’s top bowlers throughout his career and a key to the Wildcats’ first Division I state tournament appearance last winter, said competitors, friends and anyone else he meets might think he has a lazy eye, if they notice at all.
“I had a science teacher a few years ago, and we got to the end of the year with about a month left and someone said something that I had a fake eye,” Bremer said. “He asked if I was OK to do everything and I said, ‘Yep, I’ve been doing it all year.’
“I don’t think about it most of the time. I don’t have as much depth perception because of it, but since I’ve had it my whole life, I am used to it.”
Bremer quickly got used to bowling, too, even though he eschewed it for baseball growing up. Older brother Ryan bowled for Davidson from 2009-13, and Nicholas was busy as a shortstop and pitcher until eighth grade.
As a natural right-hander, his good eye faced the pitcher when he batted.
Nicholas finally tried out for bowling a few weeks before his freshman season began and joined varsity right away, averaging 174.7 pins per game with a top score of 219. He bettered his top game by 38 pins as a sophomore and averaged 199.8, then bested that a season ago with a 202.9 average and high game of 266 to pace Davidson to a district runner-up finish and third place at state.
Individually, Bremer was third at sectional (713), ninth at district (658) and 15th at state (654).
“Especially the second half of the year, he was really hot, (and) this year, he is just steady,” Davidson coach Tim Voigt Sr. said. “He’s even-keeled and looks forward to the next shot. He doesn’t get upset about getting an open here and there.”
Bremer is averaging 195.9 through 15 games this season for the Wildcats (6-0).
Teammate Andy Willman began calling Bremer the “One-Eyed Wonder” a few years ago, a nickname that has stuck.
“He is someone to look up to for sure,” teammate and classmate Tim Voigt Jr. said. “He’s certainly a leader. He’s also, I would say, passionate for everybody else. He cares about what everyone does. … And he’s a great bowler.”
Bremer was 10 months old when his grandmother noticed an oddity with the color of his pupils in a photograph. A subsequent doctor’s visit revealed retinoblastoma, a cancer that begins in the back of the retina.
The family was referred to an ocularist in Philadelphia, where Bremer’s right eye was removed.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” said Ryan Bremer, who bowled at Campbellsville University and now is an assistant coach at Davidson. “We weren’t sure if the cancer would spread from the optic nerve to the brain. My parents had a tough choice to make.”
A glass replica, down to his eyes’ natural brown color, was constructed. Bremer still attends follow-up appointments in Philadelphia every year or two, and because of natural growth is on his third and likely final glass eye.
As his senior year winds down, Bremer is equally or more concerned with reaching a second consecutive state tournament. Spare shooting remains a priority.
“In the offseason I practiced on harder conditions and patterns, and that really helped me keep a steady line and help me hit my lines better,” he said. “It’s being able to know what I need to get and what the team needs.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Davidson bowler Nicholas Bremer thrives despite loss of right eye
