Chpts. 15 & 16: “Olympic Hopefuls” By Jay Birmingham

“Ten years ago, several Chinese women re-wrote the distance running record books, crediting a diet of turtle soup and caterpillars for the breakthrough.”

Chapter Fifteen

AUGUST

          “Good evening, sports fans, and welcome to the Cable Sports Network’s ‘World of Sport.’  I’m H.R. Javitts.

          “LaDewayne Morris, HIV positive, but still showing no symptoms of AIDS, led his Pistons basketball team to its tenth win in summer-league action.  L.D. scored 24 points and tallied 17 assists as player-coach, only the third man to attempt the dual role in NBA history.  The Pistons pounded the Jazz, 108-88.

          “Chester ‘Bucky’ Rabbit, the colorful Yankees outfielder, says he’ll pursue Barry Bonds’ home run record seriously next season, after his bid for that is falling far short this year.  Rabbit blames sore hands from a broken bat for his dearth of dingers this July, when he hit only five.

          “Rabbit spoke to us from his Long Island mansion, where he takes two hundred swings a day in his customized practice facility.”

          A film clip of the pudgy Rabbit, whaling at fastballs from a robot pitcher, amused John Corbin, who lay on the floor of his apartment, stretching and massaging his tender quadriceps.

          The ball player was dressed in a Babe Ruth-era uniform.  He spat tobacco juice at the camera, chortled, then went back to face the robot’s tireless arm.

          “Six Chinese women runners were barred from competing at a late-summer track meet in Florence, Italy yesterday.  These China Dolls were entered in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters but refused to submit to the pre-meet drug testing, citing religious and cultural prohibitions.

          “Ten years ago, several Chinese women re-wrote the distance running record books, crediting a diet of turtle soup and caterpillars for the breakthrough.

          “Coach Armando Animas, chief watchdog of U.S. drug testing, had this to say, when we caught up with him at Rio Grande State College in New Mexico this afternoon.”

          Animas stood in a park, stopwatch in hand, while a dozen athletes whizzed past him on a woodchip path.  He was obviously more interested in his runners than the interviewer.

          “We’re always sorry when anyone is suspected of, or caught for, using illegal substances,” said the veteran coach.  “The Italian officials are correct in pre-testing athletes at their meet, however.  I’ve campaigned for years to get the Americans and Africans to do it.”

          Javitts returned to the screen, wisecracking.  “That’s it from me, ‘Home Run’ Javitts.  I’m gonna eat some worms and then try out my new golf clubs!”

          The jowly sportscaster tilted his head back, and dropped two gelatin worms into his gaping mouth.  “Back to you in the studio, Deborah,” he mumbled.

          Disgusting, thought John Corbin.  There’s no hope for this guy. I think that kid from Ohio was running the steeple in Florence.  I wonder how he did?

                                      *        *        *        *        *

Athletics Gazette

August 18

          With sadness, we report the death of Iggy Frost, the legendary coach at Nebraska State College near Beatrice, NE.  Ignatio W. Frost was born in 1912, earned his doctorate in social studies at the University of Nebraska, and coached track and cross country at NSC for forty-eight years. He never married. 

          “Coach had a heart attack while working in his garden on August 1,” said Cecil Medley, his most outstanding athlete. “I visited him at the hospital and then at his home over the next two weeks, but he just became weaker and weaker.  He told me two things: ‘Get your Ph.D. and seek out Coach Animas in New Mexico.  He will help you with your training.’ “

          Frost coached his small college team to eleven national championships in track and fourteen championships in cross country.  One hundred and seven individuals earned All-American honors under his tutelage. The Nebraska State provost reported that Frost’s athletes had a 96% graduation rate and GPAs averaging 3.54.

          Medley placed fifth at April’s Boston Marathon and earned his B.A. in history in June.

Chapter Sixteen

THE KIVA

          “This is Clarence Wapiti.  How may I help you?” The voice was gentle but strong over the telephone.

          ‘Mr. Wapiti, this is Coach Animas at Rio Grande State.  How is your morning?”

          “Coach!  So good to hear from you!  I’m fine, thank you.  How is your wife?”

          “Joetta is fine.  Thank you for asking.  And how is your beautiful Maria?”

          “Healthy as a horse, Coach.  You know those kids didn’t get their athleticism from me.  When are you coming down for a visit?”

          “That’s why I called.  With the Olympics next summer, I wanted to prepare you for some of the challenges your family might face.  Both Tia and Kivato have a good chance to qualify for the U.S. team.”

          “Yes, Coach.  Their progress with you has been extraordinary. The entire village is proud of their achievements – the whole Pueblo Nation is aware of their successes.”

          “I sincerely hope the press down there has made the people aware they are both exceptional students as well.  Tia made the 4.0 Dean’s List for the third straight semester.  And Kivato is number one on our men’s cross-country team with his 3.92 GPA.  You have developed their study skills and their powers of dedication to a high degree.”

          “That is my wife’s doing, too,” Clarence asserted.  “So, when can you come visit? I can have my secretary clear my schedule tomorrow or Thursday.”

          “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.  Is nine o’clock all right?”

          “That is perfect!” Clarence replied.  “Meet me at my office.”

          Next morning, Armando went for his pre-dawn walk with Joetta and pointed out Orion, shining brightly in the black sky.  The morning was cold and dry.

          “Winter is here, my love,” he told her.  “When the hunter is southwest before dawn, cross-country is over and our first snow is just a matter of time.”

          “What is that bright star to the left of Orion?,” she asked, even though she knew it well.

          “That’s Sirius, the dog star.

          “And that cluster of stars straight overhead, those are the Pleiades, the seven sisters.”

          Joetta liked to get him going on their morning walks.  It was good for him to think of things other than his runners for a bit.

          “And there are the twins, Castor and Pollux.  And that bright planet is Saturn.  It’s been in Gemini for months now, and will still be there for the Olympics.”

          They returned to the house and shared coffee.  This was her favorite time, before work, walking with Armando.  No one called him this early, except the occasional coach from the East Coast with a runner problem.

          “I’m driving down to Grants to meet with Tia and Kivato’s father this morning.  What are you up to today?”

          Joetta, a retired English professor, always had a full day.

          “I’m covering a class for Dr. Green at ten, then to the food bank for a couple of hours.  What time would you like dinner?”

          “Six-thirty would be fine.  What’s on the menu?”  The coach was watching his weight but he always liked to talk about his next meal.

          “Spaghetti in my special sauce,” she said.  “How would you like some homemade bread to go with it?”

          “Sounds like a great idea.  But we’ll need to go for another walk afterwards to work off the calories.”

          It took Armando three hours to drive the ninety-five miles from campus to Grants.  There was no direct route.  The New Mexico highway system was modern in most places, but through the pueblos, the arteries became capillaries, following arroyos and skirting mesas.  Back roads were designed for people in no hurry.

          He followed the map Kivato had drawn for him.  At length, in a small adobe shopping plaza, he found the office:

WAPITI, ARMSTRONG, AND CLINE

ATTORNEYS AT LAW

          “Good morning, Coach,” greeted Clarence Wapiti.  He wore a white long-sleeved shirt and a brown necktie with bright orange and green petroglyphs embroidered on it.  Clarence was short, muscular, and handsome.  His long black hair was pulled neatly into a ponytail, revealing his broad forehead.  Like most Pueblos, his skin was the color of the desert soil.

          “Have you had breakfast?’ Clarence asked.

          “Just coffee with my wife.  Say, let me use your restroom!”

          Clarence directed him to the lavatory and called Maria on the telephone.

          “Hello, my sweet wife.  Would it be possible for Coach and me to have breakfast at the house?”  He paused and listened.  “Good!  We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

          Maria had just returned from her morning jog, today the four-mile Red Mesa course.  Though she was a lawyer like Clarence, she rarely worked at the office, preferring to stay at home, working in the garden and helping their neighbors.

          Until Tia and Kivato enrolled at Rio Grande State, much of Maria’s time was spent raising her children.  Although they finished up at Pueblo United High School, Maria and Clarence had home-schooled the twins for eight years, teaching them English and Spanish, math and science, and the rich traditions of the Havatura people.

          Clarence drove Armando through the reservation, past poor homes with broke-down cars, chairs resting against the outside wall of most houses.  Occasionally, a couch stood in a yard, a perch for residents on a sunny afternoon.  “These are my people, my cousins and uncles,” he waved his hand at the dirt-colored dwellings.

          “Most of these people work at the casinos in nearby pueblos,” he said.  “I’ve fought successfully for years to keep our people from building one here.”

          “Five things come with the casinos and four of them are bad,” Clarence said.  “Maybe even the extra income isn’t good for our people.  About forty Havatura work in businesses here or in Grants – little shops and offices like mine.  Most families still grow their own crops.  Only one in twenty of our children goes to college.”

          His home stood at the foot of Gila Butte, a modest one-story adobe-covered building of fourteen-hundred square feet.  Maria, barefoot, stood waiting at the open door.  “Welcome, Coach!” she said, walked up to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek.

          “Thank you for having me to your home,” Armando said.  “This is my first visit to the Havatura Pueblo, though I have visited several others.  It looks like a wonderful place for a runner to develop.”

          “Come in, please,” Maria said.  He started to remove his shoes and she insisted he not.  “A well-worn carpet means a happy home,” she said.  “Besides, you might get a cactus spine in your foot!”

          Maria had quickly made some fry bread, a recipe from the Navajo, and served up bowls of hot cereal.  “It’s barley,” she said, “grown here on the reservation.  We plant it and harvest it by hand.  It requires a lot of water, but we cultivate just four acres.  We grind it on stones that have been used by our people for over three hundred years,” she said proudly.

          “Are you a native Havatura?” asked Armando.

          “No, Coach, I was born and reared at Jemez Pueblo near Taos.  Clarence and I met at UNM as undergraduates.  We married, and after graduation, attended Cal Berkley for our law degrees.  Then we returned here, to Clarence’s home.”

          After they had eaten their porridge and several pieces of fry bread covered with honey, they moved from the heavy wooden furniture of the kitchen to a veranda on the south-facing side of the house.  The December sun felt good on their skin.

          “Before I discuss the Olympic Games and your children, I must ask one question,” Armando said to Clarence.

          Clarence Wapiti, attorney-at-law, nodded.

          “How did you come to be named Clarence?”

          “Hah!  I knew something was bothering you, Coach!  I’m happy to answer that for you.”

          “When I was born, my parents realized an Anglo name might serve me well if I was to journey beyond our culture.  If you go by a name for twenty years, it is difficult to change, even if you don’t like it.  But in my case, I drew pride from bearing this white-man’s name, coupled with my family’s name.  It made me feel I could live in both worlds.

          “Believe me, as a youth, I thought often of changing it but now it is symbolic.  I am an Indian who knows the old ways but learned new ways.  I entered the white world to become a lawyer and returned to the Pueblo world to serve my people.”

          Armando nodded.  “Your pride in your heritage is reflected by your children.”  He nodded toward Maria, who was serving them iced tea.  “They are proud to follow in the footsteps of their parents.  And now, they aspire to cross more lines.  In my view, the Olympic Games are the ultimate blending of cultures – up to this point – in our world today.

          “If Kivato or Tia makes the Olympic team, you can expect many journalists to trek here to interview them, and the both of you.” Armando explained. 

          “They’ll be looking for unusual details and will probably ask inappropriate and personal questions.  My suggestion is to protect the kids.  Any time the press disrupts their training, put an end to it.  These journalists can talk to them at school or at track meets.  But if you aren’t careful, they’ll hound you and your neighbors, right here at your home.”

          “Thank you, Coach.  Maria and I are so grateful for your knowledge and your concern.”

          Clarence explained to Animas that the bulk of his work was pro bono; he let his partners deal with litigation and contracts.  Much of his income, nearly twenty times more than the average of his village, was plowed back into tribal projects – the community building, crop development, the elementary school, and ceremonies.

          “Come, Armando – uh . . . Coach.  I would like to show you our village’s kiva.”

          Clarence Wapiti stepped off the veranda into the sagebrush on a well-traveled path.  Armando walked close behind.  He observed that Clarence was careful not to step on any of the dozens of insects crawling across the desert floor.  “I have noticed a reverence for life in your son and daughter.  I see that you have taught that to them.”

          “Yes, the bugs!  Hah!  It takes only a bit of thought, and of course, I don’t miss them all.  But they have a struggle to live, like every other creature.  Man is too often a thoughtless destructor.  Those I miss will be meals for the lizards.  And the ones I crush are food for the ants.  We teach the sanctity of all living things to our children.  Every organism is important to all other life.”

          Armando found himself dodging the beetles, spiders, and grasshoppers as he trod down the path.  After hiking about a quarter-mile, they stood beneath the south-facing cliff of Viejo Mesa.  Remnants of an abandoned cliff dwelling clung to the lower forty feet of the mesa wall and spanned a hundred feet across.  Rubble of large and small adobe blocks had fallen along the base.

          “The Anasazi built this, perhaps a thousand years ago.  We maintain its condition from year to year, adding a bit of adobe to a crack or replacing a sagging timber.  But we have rejected the idea of rebuilding it to like-new condition.  It is a piece of our ancient history.

          “We keep only one part of these structures in use.  It is this, the kiva, our sacred place for ceremonies.”

          They were sixty feet away from the mesa wall, standing before a hexagonal arrangement of heavy cedar timbers on the ground.  Its diameter was fifteen feet.  The top of a wood ladder protruded from a small opening in the ground, literally a manhole.  Clarence pulled something colorful from his pocket and draped it over the ladder’s top rung.  Then he grabbed one upright, swung his foot around, and quickly backed downward, out of sight. He beckoned Armando to follow.

          “Stand quietly for a minute; your eyes will soon accommodate to the darkness,” Clarence told him when he reached the bottom.

          Gradually, Armando could see the inside of the kiva.  The depth was about eight feet, the floor and walls were earth, and the ceiling was fashioned of hand-hewn cedar logs.  A tiny fire pit was opposite the ladder and a vent led into a wall.

          “There are two major designs,” Clarence explained.  “Some tribes build a kiva with four internal walls, one for each of the four cardinal directions.  The Havatura, and a few others, build kivas with six walls.  For us, they represent the six elements of the circle of life:  Earth and sky, sun and rain, plants and animals.”

          Armando felt the sanctity of the place.  The smell of the cool ground was calming. The quiet inside was absolute – he could hear his brain hum.

          Several minutes passed before Clarence spoke again.  “The kiva is where we come for ceremonies.  Some ceremonies are formal and performed in a group – up to twelve people for some.  Other ceremonies are personal and informal.  When someone is in the kiva, a beaded cloth is draped over the top of the ladder and everyone else stays away.”

          Armando stood quietly.  An always-busy man, he felt an unaccustomed calm here.  He could not speak – felt no desire to ask questions.  Clarence squatted near the fire pit, placed his palms on the floor, and spoke.

          “Wakantanka, I thank you for this day of living on your earth.  Know that I am grateful for my wife and my children.  Thank you, also, for this man who teaches and strengthens Tia and Kivato.  May he walk a good path and continue to lead others.”

          Clarence rose, rubbed the dirt from his hands on the sleeves of his white shirt, turned, and climbed the ladder.

          Armando waited in the kiva.  Slowly and deeply, he inhaled the earthy air.  He imagined the hundreds of Havatura who had come here over the years to be thankful, to find peace, or to put the challenges of their lives back in order.

          When Armando climbed out of the kiva, Clarence was fifty yards away, watching a mound of ants at work in the chamisa. 

1 comments on “Chpts. 15 & 16: “Olympic Hopefuls” By Jay Birmingham
  1. Excellent

Leave a Reply to waltchadwick7Cancel reply