Kill, Maim, Slay. Vol. 1 - I'm Seeing Red

[Vinnie]

1 hour ago, richcottrell said:

72.6 kg this morning…. 
If I actually did any cardio, I think I could always be sub 74kg.

I think it is time I should Re-shape my goal of The Red.

going to give the hernia a long time to heal.  I lost too much work from the surgery, let alone the recovery.

Joined the local Arboretum.  Going to use good old fashioned “walks through the trees” as time to rethink the big question of:

”why am I here again?
 

 I did not discover the GripBoard to learn about bending.  That came later.

I came here for knowledge and later found comradeship.

I still have a weak grip.  I think I let myself get too distracted…

 

No time to go back in time, just time to move forward!

 

RC

 

 

I am fascinated by bending - I think it is so cool - but I am just too much of a wuss to subject myself to the bruising!  So I have only dabbled with the entry level feats (did a 60-D, did an easy horseshoe, and said that's all folks!).  Every now and then I join in on a group braced bend and hit it a couple of times, but otherwise I stick with grip lol.  Why don't you get back to the basics and do some COC closes?  You should be able to do that even with hernia, no?

[richcottrell]

So your saying there’s a chance…

I added a larger cowbell to that horseshoe… and in it on a tree.

re-inspecting it hanging there; it looks like I’ve left it  on the table for a red ride someday.

I bet now, a bent Red. would make a cool clanger inside that cowbell!

 

now as for CoC again.  I certainly have the grippers to start light, but yesterday I think I stretch too far so i do not want to do anything except walk.

somedays i daydream I will Grip again,
But most days I just hope fir a few hours more sleep;
Which i seem to never find .

[richcottrell]

Another bender cowbell.  
 

[richcottrell]

[richcottrell]

I am thinking about having a Grip Garage Sale

I have a basement of un-touched stuff.

 

[richcottrell]

Hmmmm…

[richcottrell]

Got a 135 to cut…

plenty of Grip and BJJ books to sell.

when winter clears plenty of grip to sell

[JHenze646]

Are you cashing out?

[richcottrell]

Tom "Tek" Kleban, is someone who had a major impact on my life.
 

Sadly, right before working a Phillies game broadcast in the rain the other night, I learned that Tom passed away.

 

We met at at Penn State.

I was on the track team as a pole vaulter and Tek was one of my coaches.
 

If not for pole vaulting -- I most certainly would have joined the Army and not gone to college.

I had only applied to 4 schools. All were in Pennsylvania.

Penn State was the biggest college on the list. The selection had nothing to do with reputation. I figured the biggest school would have the most majors.
 

I was very uncertain about even going to college.

I was a good pole vaulter in high school, but Penn State was in the Big10, so that school's track team was going to be a reach.

 

For admissions, I checked off for Summer Session to make sure I would be on the main campus at University Park.
 

Sunner 94

We had so much snow that winter; Pennsylvania schools were pushing back graduation by weeks.  I left HS two weeks early.

I literally started Penn State main campus before I technically graduated HS.
 

As soon as I was allowed, I called the track office.
 

I remember walking down and getting to meet Assistant Coach Bill Whittaker.

It was a cold reception.

Leaving his office that day, I knew I had a lot of work to do.
 

Freshman year:

I successfully walked onto the track team as a pole vaulter.

 

My 1994 track yearbook shows Ki-Jana Carter was on the team; but besides football games, I would never have seen him at indoor track practice -- My first introduction to super-athletes.
 

The names of the studs I do remember most:

Brian Kelly and Brian Milne, as well as Antonio Davis.
 

Sophomore year

This is when I would meet Tom "Tek" Kleban.

Tek had come back to help coach PSU Track & Field as there were changes in the coaching staff.
 

Tom was getting his master's degree at the time and he would be volunteering to coach the Pole Vault.
 

As an undergraduate, Tek had set a few Penn State pole vault records of his own. He was a decathlon athlete.

While I did not meet him, Tom's older brother Rick had also been a stud at PSU, with even more decathlon and pole vault records.
 

Note:

To give you an idea how much better of a pole vaulter Tek was than me;

When we would have been the same age, Tom was verifiably vaulting about 2 feet higher than my best unofficial jumps. This is a big difference.  

 

I will tell you more about Tek shortly, but as a coach, I always felt he was the kindest person to me on the coaching staff.
 

 

Unfortunately, I would not last that full second year with the track team.
 

I still had yet to raise the bar.

Literally.

My heights had plateaued.
 

One beautiful State College day, I got to practice early and there was a list on the wall.

Lots on guys names were NOT on that list.

My name was NOT on the list.
 

Just like that, I was no longer a pole vaulter.
 

It was devastating for me at the time.

Pole Vault was the glue for me to be in college in the first place.

Yes, I cried.
 

I was heartbroken and frankly I could have been very lost, but I had a few amazing things happen for me:

1) I did finally find something to major in.

(this became official just weeks before getting cut from the team)

2) I met Tek.
 

Like I said, I was not raising the bar with the pole vault.. so I did not deserve my spot on the team.

Tek on the other hand; Tek was still raising the bar. And now I am not talking about the pole vault.
 

Tek helped me move on.

He helped me rebound and its is ironic how life turns out.
 

Little did I know, getting cut from that team was one of the single most important things that happened to me in life.
 

Coach Bill Whittaker (the assistant coach -- and my nonexistent welcome wagon); he became an official reference for a very formal interview, to audition to be -- The Nittnay Lion.
 

I did not pass round one.  
 

Later, by asking the right person to volunteer (thank you Chuck Unger), used Coach Whittaker's name again.
 

This time, as a reference for my PBS Job application which led to my Production Assistant job at WPSX (now WPSU).
 

That's where I learned to work live multi-camera sporting events and the rest is history...
 

During that critical time at University; after I got cut from the track team; I got to circle back up with Tom Kleban.

I got to follow him with the camera and interview him for a short documentary project for film class.
 

I purposely did not mention one thing about about Tek, but:

When Tom Kleban came back to volunteer to help coach the Pole Vault at PSU, Tek was now a quadriplegic.
 

He had a tragic diving accident years earlier when he was an undergraduate student.

In an instant, his whole life became a struggle.
 

But you would never have known it at track practice.

Here, Tom Kleban was volunteering and coaching one of the most technical and misunderstood of all the field events. Yet he was bound to that chair and all his other daily struggles.

Penn State is a huge campus.
 

I ended up majoring in film production at PSU.  

One day, I was able to ask Tom to be in a documentary project for class.
 

This film project; which Jim Huie had conceived; was to make a short documentary;

"What is life actually like for a Penn State students, who also happened to be in wheelchairs. "
 

No voice over was used.
Instead, we spent some time with three different student that agreed to be in the film. Deadlines were tight, so the whole production was done in a few weeks.
 

When we had pitched the idea to our professor, we thought the "commonality" of this mini-documentary was going to be about "mobility".
 

We got that part wrong.
 

What these three people truly had in common was;

Resiliency.
 

There are somethings that cameras can not truly capture. Some things no interview can convey.

Their Resiliency.

Unmatched.
 

Thank you Tom for the friendship and encouragement. You will always be an inspiration to me.

[Blacksmith513]

Sorry to hear about the passing of your friend. 

Losing someone that close to you, who made that big of an impact on your life is not an easy thing.