Ode to an Athlete Dying Young?

I don’t think it’s off-message to invoke the words of Houseman’s Ode to an Athlete Dying Young and, in doing so, to take full advantage of the fortunate irony that tonight I’m cast in the role of narrator and NOT the subject of the Eulogy:
“Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.”

For those of you I may have lost or shocked into distraction by my reciting of poetry and are now fumbling for your pens wondering if this will appear on any test you’ll be administered before graduation please take these notes or as Cliff Hobbins would ask:

“Where’s the kiwi in that buckwheat?”
• Lad’s, athletes, and records are mortal
• Records and stirring victories are merely plot devices
• the practical use , the relevance – what we should strive to remember about the records and the victory is the how or the why beneath the achievement.

In October 2006 - only one year after suffering what should have been devastating physical and cognitive disability from stroke- I celebrated my recovery by participating as "honorary stroke survivor" in the Austin Heart Walk, by running the 5K distance, and by personally managing an on-line fundraising campaign that raised a record breaking $11,000 for The American Heart & Stroke Associations.

As if those circumstances aren’t enough drama. I should explain [as I show you a picture of me crossing the finish line that day] that I was wearing a Portsmouth X-C Singlet not just to celebrate the fact that the jersey still fit but to recognize an 11th hour gift from the abbey cross country team arranged by their captain - my niece Anna Buckley that put my fundraising total over $10,000

The histrionics of my “miraculous” physical recovery from a stroke and the powerful images of the events of that one day in my life might overshadow the significance of the physical and cognitive with which I continue to struggle. I’m here tonight facing yet another challenge:
To extract, describe and then leave you with any insights I gained in that one year of recovery from stroke that any of us will remember, find relevant or of practical use. I will have failed if you end up thinking my recovery was possible because of my athletic ability or that this was just another great race by John Murphy – the guy with those records on the wall.
I'm thrilled to be at a point in this journey where I am physically and cognitively recovered enough to share my experience with this assembled group of Senior Athletes [and former Athletes now Seniors] and so I’ll have to use a classic three point nmemonic – that’s ah three points that I need to remember to cover tonight -
to express my profound gratitude for the opportunities that supported the life-altering skills I acquired on these very grounds
to share my somewhat unique perspective on the value of competitive athletics
to urge next year’s captains to consider the slogan “miracles don’t just happen” as both mnemonic and a call to action inspired from my talk tonight .
I knew how a team “works”
Day one of Jim Garman’s X-country season was a chalk talk about the intricacies of the team scoring. The placement of the 3-7 runners were as if not more significant as that of the top runners. The focus in competition and practices you see was necessarily placed upon the development of each and every individual. So, the quality of efforts of a guy named Joe Tucker or the then [and still] goofy Ignatius MacClellan were in a very real sense as important as that of John Murphy.

We all have some notions of the value of team work: “many hands make light work” –. I’m here tonight to illustrate how a team works and just how powerful that concept can be. I can’t over emphasize how valuable the instinct for building and joining teams around me has been in my recovery.

The ability to share my excitement over little victories like being able to open a yoghurt without spurting it all over me or making progress with my hand to a point of being able to have a “normal shampoo” with folks at RIC was incredibly powerful and provided me the drive to get through the thousands of failed attempts that got me through to the one time something finally worked. I would justifiably have fallen and stayed down so many times if all the effort was for my benefit alone. Recalling how tired, frustrated, and scared I felt so often about my circumstances I can’t emphasize enough how significant a source of inspiration it was to me to feel that my recovery meant so much to so many. Let that be a lesson to us all: and especially the captains elect you never know, when a simple act of kindness or expression of affection can make a huge difference to someone who's at the end of their rope, or down to one last nerve and it's frayed and raw. By acknowledging and connecting with other members of a team I was accessing external sources of motivation stronger than any I could create or sustain on my own little project. Please understand why, therefore, your role as captain is an opportunity to cultivate skills that transcend the afternoon, the next game, or next season. [It can be so much more than just a chance to lead catholic youth around or cross cornfields in Portsmouth in your underwear]


This was not just another orthopedic injury:
I distinctly recall several instances when and where I had become so overwhelmed physically and emotionally by all it took just to get dressed and feed myself – that the prospect of having to face the work and frustrations involved in various therapies was just too much –- or so I thought--- I came pretty close to and past to tears many, many times. At some point, with no specific source of inspiration or epiphany, I arrived at the realization that by focusing on what I could do and by leveraging what I could do to make progress towards those things I wanted to do I was shoving a huge weight off my chest. Just when I had reached a boiling point of frustration over having lost control of so many aspects of my life, I was suddenly taking control.
I have absolutely no doubt that this “epiphany” was an instinct acquired through some painful but invaluable lessons acquired through my experience in competitive athletics – infact the knowledge gained from the achievements was not as important as those gained through recovery from injury or defeat
. THAT’S THE AMAZING THING I knew instinctively to ask “what are the steps I need to take before I can?” Instead of listening to a voice that said “I can’t.”

The right next step
A critical decision following the experience of running the heart walk that day - I’ll call it the right next step was to shift the focus and priorities on what I really wanted. To be able to think clearly for a sustained period and not to panic several times a day about lost keys or cell phone was SO much more important than being able to run in good alignment for forty minutes. And so I suspended medication for spastcity that were keeping me in a fog and returned to cognitive therapy for 3 x week. Again the instincts I’d gained from both success and bone crushing failure had taught that focus on progress and not obsessing on the magnitude of all that “victory called recovery” would take. True I was ensnared in a challenged-rich environment: bum leg, a useless left hand and a discouraging if not lethal problem with short –term memory. I still keep my daily medications in this blue case with compartments and use a small piece of paper to “mark” or remind myself that I took a dose that the box is not empty because I dropped a pill or forgot to fill the case.

So, I returned to cognitive therapy with Shilpa. Cognitive therapy works in a fashion similar to that of the physical rehabilitation or any mode of physical training you’ll experience. You isolate then work on injured, weak muscle with carefully planned steps of reps and weigh etc;
My cognitive therapy included the additional fortunate wrinkle of the Shilpa – this therapist was brilliant. She dragged me from listening to recordings of a guy reading list of numbers and letters while I sat hitting a buzzer when I heard the letter “N” or the number “2” to “playing” computer based games with complex instruction to move shapes around a screen – the instruction on the screen I’m showing you disappear as soon as you touch the mouse to make the first move. I graduated to a point where I would work on pages of math problems with music or the BBC news in the background for distraction. Physical therapy was easy- as I naturally enjoyed the physical challenges of lifting weights, swimming etc. I hated doing endless sheets of math problems in increasingly distracting settings.The most exciting revelation of progress attributable to the cognitive therapy came in the form of an unanticipated reward: The design and production of my ”miracles don’t just happen” poster for the RIC staff was such a big hit in Chicago that it started a little cottage industry producing several alternative editions such as one in which I replaced images of therapies and therapists from The Rehab Institute of Chicago with scenes from St. David’s down in Austin. This was an opportunity to do some good while I continued to do well: You couldn’t imagine how gratifying it was for me to present a revised version with images of St David’s to a group of patients and therapists at St. David’s and to hear Bob bragging about my left arm extension after Jeanne was noting how great my anterior flexion, heel strike and hip alignment looked. The greatest revelation at that moment: to recognize the unanticipated rewards of all the hard work with Shilpa- that I was able to leverage my intact verbal abilities to communicate effectively and more significantly to “do good while getting well”

When Iggy first called me to propose that I fly up to speak at this dinner I leapt at the chance – as public speaking was a part of what a did professionally and remains a big challenge both physically and cognitively so this was a geat opportunity to “do some good- I’ll have to throw a heavy rhoDIland accent in there – ironically, if I do too well tonight, I put my disability status at risk. So, it’s time for me to present you with a small gift – a special edition of my miracles don’t just happen poster delivered here tonight by my sister – not John Murphy’s sister – Jimmy Buckley’s mother!

The passing of the baton
As captain it is your responsibility to work with your coach and your teammates so that you’re not just running around or through the cornfields of Portsmouth in your underwear. Here are a few suggestions from one made weak by time and fate but strong enough in will to have seen the kiwi in the buckwheat. And so I have a gift I’d like to pass on to each captain – I’ve come as far as I can tonight and so I’ll symbolically pass this baton - a new edition of my “Miracles don’t just happen” poster with these additional tips:
• leverage what can be done to make progress towards those things you dream of doing
• Develop a road map and know mileposts that will mark progress towards your goals
• Ritualize the feeling or the image of reaching each “next step.”
• Don’t dwell on the entire distance you have ahead
• Miracles don’t always arrive by leaps and bounds, but by a sequence of small steps in the right direction
• The most effective leaders lead by example every day
• Cultivate respect and empathy for teammates and competitors as these relationships are a far more powerful source of motivation than a nurturing of individual achievement

Parting thoughts from Tennyson’s Ulysses

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Thank you SO much for the therapeutic opportunity to acknowledge that although I am now “permanently disabled,” some work of noble note might yet be done. Thanks for the inspiration to do some good as I continue to get well.