She shot straight as an arrow
Published 11:00 am Wednesday, August 20, 2008
“The more we ‘manage’ students’ behavior and try to make them do what we say, the more difficult it is for them to become morally sophisticated people who think for themselves and care about others.” — Alfie Kohn
I didn’t have an opportunity to go to the Olympics in China. Perhaps I could have asked Dave Richards, the new editor, if the Herald could send me there to write a column, but I didn’t. I’m the kind of person that has to see it in person and not on television. The Olympics have been on at the house quite a bit, and sometimes I have witnessed a few water events and one or two of those bars events where they swing from and attempt to turn four or five summersaults and land on their feet without tipping over. I’m afraid if I were there I would be out in the woods hunting mushrooms.
Or I might choose to walk around Beijing enjoying the smog and doing Tai Chi in the park. I would also be asking the people if the tanks really crushed students when they were demonstrating years ago. I don’t believe they did. Of course I don’t always believe what I am told by the State.
It was almost embarrassing to have President Bush threaten Putin for taking the action he did in Georgia. Is he forgetting what we’re doing in Iraq?
I have mentioned in the Herald before about attending the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal where we watched Luann Ryan win the gold medal in archery. It was the highlight of my Olympic career. Jane Wescott, an Austin native living and teaching in California, drove out. Fred Ryan, Luann’s her older brother, and I traveled with her.
Luann was a river rat growing up on the Colorado River at Parker, Ariz., where the family owned and operated a campground that was filled with people on the weekend.
Susan Hall, a good friend of Luann, sent a copy of the Aug. 7 Press-Enterprise from Riverside, Calif., where Luann was featured on the front page.
Luann was going to school at Riverside City College when she wanted to sign up for tennis; the class was full. She signed up for archery instead. Luann had followed her brother Fred to Riverside in 1971. John Williams, the 1972 Olympic gold medalist from Pennsylvania, came to California. Luann had talent, but was erratic until John got there, and he began to work with her.
In 1975, John and Luann teamed up. She was still in school, but told her mother she was going to quit and use the money to train. “She thought I was crazy,” Luann said.
John didn’t.
“Her physical attributes, her form, her finesse weren’t there,” John said. “But she had the mental attitude, the discipline and the competitive drive. I helped her refine her technique. She just kept getting better and better and better.”
She won the Olympic trials the following year and went to Montreal as the new kid on the block.
Her mother was there too and so were we. The Archery Field was a distance from Montreal. We camped nearby. It was called Ches Boo Boo. I also remember seeing armed soldiers in the woods as we walked by getting to the archery field.
Two Soviet Union shooters were heavy favorites. They would finish second and third. Luann led the first day and did even better under the pressure of being out front. Her final score of 2,499 was a world record and a gold metal.
While Luann won gold, my biggest accomplishment was sketching her shooting near the woods in Montreal and finding a frame for it.
The Press Enterprise wrote of one of Luann’s amusing moments. Once, Luann was talking to a driver before dawn while waiting for the newspaper bundles at the loading dock. “I mentioned that I was an Olympic gold medal winner, and he said, ‘Yeah, and I’m the Queen of England,’” Luann said laughing. “He kept right on talking.”
“I think it just gave me a sense of confidence,” Luann said about the experience. “Like you can do what you set out to do.”
I talked with Luann a few Thanksgivings ago when visiting Riverside. She stopped by. She now works as a dietary aide in a psychiatric care facility in Rubidoux next door to Riverside.
“I think it just gave me a sense of confidence,” Luann said about the experience. “Like you can do what you set out to do.”