8603010760
DETROIT FREE PRESS
861226
Friday, December 26, 1986
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1986, Detroit Free Press
ACHING HUNGER FOR MORE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DIGEST
Kathy Ormsby jumped off the bridge. She just jumped. She was running in a
college race and she was losing and she was frustrated and suddenly she ran
out of the stadium with eight laps to go, ran down a main street, "apologized
to God" and leaped off the bridge. She was trying to kill herself. She failed.
She landed in a soggy marsh 35 feet below and lay there, paralyzed, until
somebody found her.
No sadder stories. There can be no sadder stories. That is all I thought
when this happened six months ago in Indianapolis. It is all I think even
today, the day after Christmas.
No sadder stories. Not just because Kathy Ormsby, 22, will never walk --
much less run -- again. Or because people now stare at her when she goes to
church.
It is something more, something I have not been able to shake since
hearing the news. Part of what led her to that day -- the fear of failure, the
maddening pressure for excellence -- cuts the flesh of our whole society.
Bleed for her story. For if there is one lesson to be learned from the sports
world in 1986, it may be inside the two-story colonial house in North
Carolina, where Kathy Ormsby, who earlier this year ran a U.S. collegiate
record in the 10,000 meters, now rolls herself from room to room, forever
bound to a wheelchair.
No sadder stories.
In pursuit of perfection Listen to the profile. Didn't you know her? Early
rising. Hard training. She squeezed every minute out of every day. Even kept
a daily itinerary. She was a top student, who did not let social life
interfere with her goals. A North Carolina State teammate called her "a
perfectionist."
And had Kathy Ormsby become famous for victory -- an Olympic medal,
perhaps -- her obsessive traits would have been hailed. "Total dedication,"
the stories might have read.
But there is another side to total dedication. Kathy Ormsby had been
blacking out in races long before the day she tried to kill herself. When she
suffered from these occasional "panic attacks" -- a terrifying insecurity that
actually knocked her unconscious -- she felt only that she was "failing my
coach and my parents."
Total dedication.
After the accident, her shaken father was asked what he thought had
caused her action. "I believe," he said, "it had something to do with the
pressure that is put on young people to succeed."
Think about this. Pressure to succeed. And think about other disturbing
headlines from this past year. Len Bias. Don Rogers. SMU. Cocaine, money,
scandal, death.
And know this: The true demon is not anything that comes in vial, a
bottle, or a sealed envelope. It is the pressure that lurks behind all those
things.
The demon is overkill.
We dream of more Too much. We want too much. It's not enough to be on the
team anymore. We want stars. It's not enough to be a number. Be No. 1. "More"
is the password. More and more. Every coach seems to want more-dedicated
athletes, every parent seems to want the kids to start younger. Gymnasts
begin in kindergarten. Tennis players leave home in the fifth grade to be
nearer their coaches.
All is forgiven in the pursuit of excellence. They are, after all,
pursuing "the dream."
What dream, for heaven's sake? Does it take a death leap or a drug
overdose to tell us the dream is out of control? "When I went off the bridge,"
Ormsby said recently, "part of me remembers apologizing to God and saying I'm
sorry."
For what? Trying to take her life?
Or not being able to run faster?
Obsession has become our poison. From the alumni booster who will pay
athletes for victory, to the athlete who wants everything so fast he ignores
the consequences. From the coach who looks the other way, to a young woman
whose fear of failure almost led to her suicide in a quiet river bank.
And she is not alone.
It has happened before.
They are spokes on the same wheel, all these sports tragedies, a wheel
that goes too fast, has gotten too big. So much of the time, we are neck-deep
in our enthusiasm. We forget these are people out there. And then something
happens.
I have Kathy Ormsby's phone number. Like a hundred other journalists, I
have wanted to talk more about the accident. I dialed the number Thursday,
let the phone ring twice, then hung up.
What can I ask? What could she say?
Nothing. If we resolve anything in this new year, let it be our
perspective. We have created a bubble in which sports success is worshiped.
Until that changes, every ambulance that comes for another athlete's body may
be, in a small way, a mark on the bottom line of our souls.
It is the day after Christmas, the first one Kathy Ormsby spent in a
wheelchair. No sadder stories. Let us hope there never are.
KATHY ORMSBY;INJURY