Remembering Rich

Forward: These past few nights I have been lying awake in my bed before dawn, thinking of so many people I remember from school. I feel a little sad at the fact that I don't have any of my high school yearbooks handy (or at all, I fear) so that I might see if I'm remembering them correctly. My apologies if not.

Rich Cavanaugh was a kid I knew in high school. He was two or three years older than I was, so we weren't really close, but he made a lasting impression--on everyone, really. Rich had cerebral palsy and had a tough time even walking, as is typical for victims of this debilitating disease, yet he ran with us on the San Dieguito High School Mustangs Cross Country team. He was a Senior when I was a Freshman, I think. I'm having a tough time with this because our two area junior high schools were home to the Freshman classes, and ninth grade runners would only sometimes travel with the high schoolers to invitational events or dual meets where the opposing school fielded a ninth grade team. On those occasions, Freshmen were added to the JV race, and this is where I best remember Rich. C.I.F. rules precluded Senior athletes from competing on the JV level in any sport, but Cross-Country coaches in our league made an exception for Rich, who stood no chance of qualifying for one of the top seven Varsity spots.

Rich wasn't just slow, he ran about as fast as a five-year-old walking backwards with his eyes closed -- and with the same chance of falling down on every step. It would take a long time for him to finish a two mile run, but Rich always finished, and to great acclaim. All the athletes, cheerleaders, family members and friends would always line the finish chute, cheering loudly as Rich galumphed across the line. Slobbering and breathing loudly, Rich would always manage to wrench a smile from his crooked maw and raise both crumpled hands (one higher than the other) in a victory salute.

Now, don't get me wrong, no one looks good when finishing a cross-country race. I remember my mom once told me how the sight of me coming toward the finish line used to frighten her, my complexion ashen white and my eyes dark, sunken, and rolling back into my head, I looked to her like I was dying. I would usually follow up with a walk away from the finish line to bend over at the waste with my hands shaking against my knees as I violently dry-heaved for half a minute or more.

But Rich had a special status when it came to finishing a race--a grotesqueness any high school boy would find revolting and admirable in equal degree. Drenched in sweat and slobber with long trails of spittle draping from his chin to his shoulders and flapping in the rhythm of his jerky gate, Rich would always finish strong, dusted with dirt and sometimes bleeding from his knees or elbows, or both. Rich's final sprint (if you can call it that) was like a car wreck in slow motion. Everyone was horrified, but no one could look away. And every Mustang runner truly respected and loved him.

One race I remember distinctly, Rich was taking longer than usual to come in. We ran at home that day at our course off Saxony Road three miles or so from school. Ours was surely the toughest course in all the Palomar League--maybe the entire county--and spanned a full quarter mile longer than was allowed by the rules, traversing over dirt roads and coyote trails. The hills were extremely long and steep, and the downhill sections even steeper, offering no respite as runners would struggle to stay on their feet that pounded loudly as billows of dust ballooned up behind them. At one point, nearly two miles into the course, racers were given a choice to either jump a narrow ravine, or stay on the trail for a turn back to the other side three seconds or so later. Mustangs always took the leap--except Rich, I supposed, who really couldn't.

Well, about the time the opposing coach instructed his team to to get on their bus and told Coach Temples that they really had to get back home, Temples told several of us to go back on the course and look for Rich. We got almost back to the ravine before we saw him. I remember I could just see his head poking up from the ditch as he grabbed at some brush and tried to pull himself up only to slip back and disappear from view. When we got up to him, he had just slipped back again. I went up to the edge and extended my hand to him, "Here," I offered.

"NO!" Rich yelled back. "Don' tusch me! Don' helph me!" Rich knew the rules.

His face was scratched and his mouth was bleeding. I felt bad, but no one helped him as he tried once more to pull himself up... and failed, this time falling back on his butt at the bottom of the ravine. Rich wasn't stupid, and he wasn't done, but this time he figured he'd better take the other option offered him by the home course rules, and he slowly crawled back up the other side which wasn't so steep. We all cheered encouragement as he got to his feet and back on the trail to the turn around to our side of the ditch. He was bleeding from everywhere and twigs of sage clung to his uniform and his hair. Someone shouted, "Let'm finish!" and we all kept our distance as he chugged by. Someone else ran ahead to give word of our discovery, and the rest of us walked behind him with non-stop cheers and encouragement.

When Rich finally reached the part of the trail that emerged from a group of eucalyptus trees, the cheerleaders broke into our School's favorite cheer:

M-M-M-u-s-t / A-A-A-n-g-s /M-u-s-t/A-n-g-s/ Mu-u-stangs!

They must have got through it a couple dozen times before Rich finally reached the finish line, and he let out a holler as he broke through the winning tape they had restrung for him. Rich sat in the front of the bus surrounded by cheerleaders for the short ride back to school. He was dirty and bloody, and probably never happier.

I often wondered what went through Rich's mind that day, and I don't know if anyone ever asked him if he had just fallen or if he was trying to make the leap. Maybe he thought he should try, just once. That is what I choose to think. You see, Rich was one of the bravest people I have known, and also one of the funniest. He always had a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face whenever he would see me around. "Hey, Shteve!" he would shout. I wasn't sure if he was confusing me with my older brother, or was just pulling my leg. I think the latter. We were all on the same team and he often saw us together.

"Hey Rich," I would answer, not correcting him.

"How'sh yer shishter?" he would always ask. Susan had graduated top of her class the year before and everyone knew her. "Does-she shtill ashk about me?" he would say, grinning wild-eyed.

"Oh ya, of course, Rich," I'd answer, "She really misses you."

"Of courshe she doesh," he'd laugh and then add, "Oh, well... another one bitesh the dusht."

"Yup," I'd agree, "Just another broken heart."

And he'd say shuffling away, "Sho many girlsh, and sho little time. Later, Shteve."

So that year, as I tried to become a good runner, Rich was a constant inspiration to me. He made all of us better. We were lucky to have him as a teammate. If we had to run twenty "Harloff's" hill on Encinitas Blvd. or any other grueling workout Temples might come up with, no one would ever dare to complain, because there was Rich, and he didn't. And when I think back on all the high school athletes I admired--champion runners like Bruce Anderson or Lee Dick, both of whom I was lucky to train with--or gifted high school athletes like Dana Blalock, Mike Kozlowsky, Danny Fields, or Vic Yoshita , all of whom I watched compete in multiple sports at my school--never was I so impressed as I was that day I watched Rich Cavanaugh pull himself from a ditch refusing any help.

Over the next couple years, Rich had graduated, but I'd see him around, usually on his custom made adult sized tricycle--one of the first of its kind, I think. At some point, he got a job at VG Donut Shop, where everyone still goes to get the best donuts in the area. And whenever I went in to buy a couple maple bars or chocolate old-fashions, he would always see me and make his way over to the counter to shout,"Hey, Shteve!"

"Hi, Rich," I'd answer, waiting for it. Rich never failed...

"How'sh your shishter?"