Leo
06-10-2003, 11:14 AM
Texas track coach works on coaching, recovering
By JOHN SCHUMACHER
June 10, 2003
Beverly Kearney concedes the routine is demanding, tedious and time-consuming. Her athletes will tell you it's also incredibly inspirational.
Every day, the University of Texas women's track and field coach does at least 100 situps, works in some butt tucks and then begins the challenging drill of getting out of bed, into her wheelchair, into the shower and then dressing and going to therapy.
The first hour of rehabilitation focuses on strength training, so Kearney, critically injured in an auto accident Dec. 26, can re-learn how to use her legs.
Her second hour of therapy concentrates on learning to walk again, something she's counting on doing as soon as humanly possible.
And then she starts her real job - coaching a Longhorns team that expects to challenge for the team title when the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships begin Wednesday in Sacramento, Calif.
At night, after her coaching duties are done, Kearney, 45, practices using her walker, going up and down stairs to perfect her technique.
And keep her spirit soaring.
"Everything's going to be 100 percent eventually," Kearney said. "There's not any other option. ... I never doubted I was going to walk."
Kearney was headed to Disney World with driver Michelle Freeman and Freeman's mother, Muriel Wallace, both housemates; Texas academic counselor Ilrey Sparks; and Sparks' daughter Imani, now 3.
Outside Jacksonville, Fla., on Interstate 10, their sport-utility vehicle crossed the median, then rolled over. Wallace and Ilrey Sparks died; Freeman and Imani Sparks suffered minor injuries.
Kearney, thrown from the vehicle, said she always knew she would be OK, even when she lay on the side of the highway hearing conversations but unable to respond.
"Even from the beginning, I kept saying, 'I'm all right,' " said Kearney, who wasn't wearing a seat belt.
Back home, her athletes wondered if they'd lost their coach.
"I was shocked," said junior Raasin McIntosh, an NCAA favorite in the 100-and 400-meter hurdles. "I thought she had passed. Either that or she was really hurt."
Originally listed in critical condition with dislocated vertebrae and a herniated disc, Kearney underwent five hours of spinal surgery the day of the accident.
She endured two other operations in the next three weeks, the final one to correct her spinal realignment after she returned to Austin for a two-month hospital stay.
Her goal was to stand at the Texas Relays on April 5, and she did, drawing a thunderous ovation.
"It was very encouraging for everybody that she stood up to let everybody know she was going to walk again," said McIntosh, one of several Texas athletes who brought food to Kearney in the hospital.
"I see a lot of progress."
Kearney worked from her hospital bed, of course, meeting with her athletes, drawing up workouts and watching film of meets. Her assistants ran practice during the indoor season, with Kearney missing the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Now, with Kearney back at practices and traveling with the team, the plan is to win a national outdoor championship, master the walker by summer's end and walk under her own power within a year or so.
"I've never had any worries about the outcome," said Kearney, who lost 30 pounds after the accident. "The process has been hard. It's emotionally and mentally and physically challenging.
"You have to focus on your heart and your spirit more so than your mind and your body."
That hasn't always been easy. Kearney endured the loss of two friends and dealt with the lows that come with any recovery.
But she presses on, relying on lessons from a painful childhood that included an alcoholic mother who died when she was in high school.
The accident only served to deepen Kearney's resolve.
"It's intensified an already established philosophy," she said. "It's helped me to grow emotionally and spiritually."
Kearney's recovery also has inspired the Longhorns, who finished fifth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. Now, they're talking title.
"We've got a good shot at it," McIntosh said. "We're going to go for it. Definitely our whole season has pretty much turned around.
"The athletes are willing to fight more seeing as coach is fighting every day just to walk. It gives us inspiration."
Joe Volpe, Kearney's physician, told "People" magazine that Kearney has a good chance to fully recover. And if she needs braces to walk, "her limitations will be whatever she sets for herself."
Kearney, a former sprinter at Auburn who qualified for the 1980 Olympic Trials in the 200 meters, doesn't do limitations very well. She admits she's a hyper coach, used to roaming the field. And she has no use for conservative recovery plans.
"If I had stayed on their schedule, there'd be about 10 or 15 things I couldn't do right now," said Kearney, a seven-time national Coach of the Year. "If you ask me, it's going so slow. But if you ask the medical field, they think I'm flying."
Kearney wants to see her athletes flying at Hornet Stadium, doing everything they can to land a national championship.
And she wants to lend a hand, relying on the experience that comes with four national championships - the 1998 and '99 indoor and outdoor titles - since she took over the program in 1993.
"The most important thing is not what you know about your meet but what you know about your athletes," she said.
And maybe the most important thing about Kearney's recovery is what she knows about herself, that there is something deep inside to carry her forward.
"I have no question what the outcome will be for me," she said. "I will be victorious."
E-mail John Schumacher at jschumacher(at)sacbee.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
By JOHN SCHUMACHER
June 10, 2003
Beverly Kearney concedes the routine is demanding, tedious and time-consuming. Her athletes will tell you it's also incredibly inspirational.
Every day, the University of Texas women's track and field coach does at least 100 situps, works in some butt tucks and then begins the challenging drill of getting out of bed, into her wheelchair, into the shower and then dressing and going to therapy.
The first hour of rehabilitation focuses on strength training, so Kearney, critically injured in an auto accident Dec. 26, can re-learn how to use her legs.
Her second hour of therapy concentrates on learning to walk again, something she's counting on doing as soon as humanly possible.
And then she starts her real job - coaching a Longhorns team that expects to challenge for the team title when the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships begin Wednesday in Sacramento, Calif.
At night, after her coaching duties are done, Kearney, 45, practices using her walker, going up and down stairs to perfect her technique.
And keep her spirit soaring.
"Everything's going to be 100 percent eventually," Kearney said. "There's not any other option. ... I never doubted I was going to walk."
Kearney was headed to Disney World with driver Michelle Freeman and Freeman's mother, Muriel Wallace, both housemates; Texas academic counselor Ilrey Sparks; and Sparks' daughter Imani, now 3.
Outside Jacksonville, Fla., on Interstate 10, their sport-utility vehicle crossed the median, then rolled over. Wallace and Ilrey Sparks died; Freeman and Imani Sparks suffered minor injuries.
Kearney, thrown from the vehicle, said she always knew she would be OK, even when she lay on the side of the highway hearing conversations but unable to respond.
"Even from the beginning, I kept saying, 'I'm all right,' " said Kearney, who wasn't wearing a seat belt.
Back home, her athletes wondered if they'd lost their coach.
"I was shocked," said junior Raasin McIntosh, an NCAA favorite in the 100-and 400-meter hurdles. "I thought she had passed. Either that or she was really hurt."
Originally listed in critical condition with dislocated vertebrae and a herniated disc, Kearney underwent five hours of spinal surgery the day of the accident.
She endured two other operations in the next three weeks, the final one to correct her spinal realignment after she returned to Austin for a two-month hospital stay.
Her goal was to stand at the Texas Relays on April 5, and she did, drawing a thunderous ovation.
"It was very encouraging for everybody that she stood up to let everybody know she was going to walk again," said McIntosh, one of several Texas athletes who brought food to Kearney in the hospital.
"I see a lot of progress."
Kearney worked from her hospital bed, of course, meeting with her athletes, drawing up workouts and watching film of meets. Her assistants ran practice during the indoor season, with Kearney missing the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Now, with Kearney back at practices and traveling with the team, the plan is to win a national outdoor championship, master the walker by summer's end and walk under her own power within a year or so.
"I've never had any worries about the outcome," said Kearney, who lost 30 pounds after the accident. "The process has been hard. It's emotionally and mentally and physically challenging.
"You have to focus on your heart and your spirit more so than your mind and your body."
That hasn't always been easy. Kearney endured the loss of two friends and dealt with the lows that come with any recovery.
But she presses on, relying on lessons from a painful childhood that included an alcoholic mother who died when she was in high school.
The accident only served to deepen Kearney's resolve.
"It's intensified an already established philosophy," she said. "It's helped me to grow emotionally and spiritually."
Kearney's recovery also has inspired the Longhorns, who finished fifth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. Now, they're talking title.
"We've got a good shot at it," McIntosh said. "We're going to go for it. Definitely our whole season has pretty much turned around.
"The athletes are willing to fight more seeing as coach is fighting every day just to walk. It gives us inspiration."
Joe Volpe, Kearney's physician, told "People" magazine that Kearney has a good chance to fully recover. And if she needs braces to walk, "her limitations will be whatever she sets for herself."
Kearney, a former sprinter at Auburn who qualified for the 1980 Olympic Trials in the 200 meters, doesn't do limitations very well. She admits she's a hyper coach, used to roaming the field. And she has no use for conservative recovery plans.
"If I had stayed on their schedule, there'd be about 10 or 15 things I couldn't do right now," said Kearney, a seven-time national Coach of the Year. "If you ask me, it's going so slow. But if you ask the medical field, they think I'm flying."
Kearney wants to see her athletes flying at Hornet Stadium, doing everything they can to land a national championship.
And she wants to lend a hand, relying on the experience that comes with four national championships - the 1998 and '99 indoor and outdoor titles - since she took over the program in 1993.
"The most important thing is not what you know about your meet but what you know about your athletes," she said.
And maybe the most important thing about Kearney's recovery is what she knows about herself, that there is something deep inside to carry her forward.
"I have no question what the outcome will be for me," she said. "I will be victorious."
E-mail John Schumacher at jschumacher(at)sacbee.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)