Above All Else, page 9
At first my plan was to take a few weeks and explore the United States on a great cross-country road trip. Thirty-six hours later, I was blasting through Arizona in the middle of the night, trying to get to Perris as quickly as I could. I really don’t know what came over me; I just kept driving. I didn’t want to stop. If I was going to find my new team and win the nationals ten months later, there wasn’t time to stop.
None of the top teams were from Arizona, so it wasn’t on my radar at all. Deep in the desert, between Tucson and Phoenix, I saw a sign for the town of Coolidge and remembered that Piras’s first champion team, “Desert Heat,” had come from a drop zone there.
I didn’t know anyone from Coolidge, never thought of stopping there, and had no idea what I would find. But after driving all night, an incredible desert sunrise was just starting to brighten the horizon. A sight so beautiful, it deserved much more attention than I could give it in the rearview mirror. I broke right, got off at the exit ramp, and headed east toward Coolidge before I had time to think about why.
Listening to my gut like this became like a game. I didn’t sit quietly waiting for it to speak to me. Doing so would have involved too much time for analysis, and that would defeat the whole idea. Instead, I’d just get a feeling and instinctively choose to act on it or not. It was like playing a game and I was a Jedi Knight who could sense what to do at any moment.
Following my instincts didn’t exclude logic or reasoning, but it did add a higher value to what “felt” right. It required me to trust that in the pursuit of my dreams, opportunities would present themselves, and I needed to recognize them when they did.
I felt an impulsion—this was the place to be now. I’d been driving for a day and a half. If this place offered nothing else, I knew it would at least have a shower, and that was reason enough for the detour.
Coolidge is way off the beaten path. I was thirty miles off the freeway and deep, deep into the desert wilderness before I saw any signs of it. Finally, I arrived at the almost abandoned World War II training airport at about five thirty in the morning. Before I did anything else, I found the shower they have available for jumpers who are camping on the drop zone. After getting cleaned up, I took a little walk around the drop zone to check it out. There were very few people up this early in the morning, so being a complete stranger, I drew some attention.
The drop zone owner, Larry Hill, was the first to welcome me. After a short introduction, he proceeded to tell me how he had just moved from a different location to open Skydive Arizona in Coolidge. He explained that competition 4-way teams were training more than they ever had before, and he had big ambitions to turn Skydive Arizona into the biggest training center in the world.
He was right. Competitive skydiving was just starting to take off around the world. The most motivated teams were few, but they were very motivated. Teams had started traveling away from their local drop zones to hold training camps at more well-equipped skydiving centers with better weather. The team “market” was showing signs of becoming big enough to make a significant factor in building business at the right drop zone.
He went on to say that Skydive Deland had been the only operation that was making the most of this opportunity, but not for long. The weather in Arizona was far better for team training than Florida, and Deland had little for facilities compared to the operation he was planning to build. The only thing Deland had going for it that Larry didn’t was Tom Piras. Larry knew that if he wanted Skydive Arizona to become the next big training center, it would require having a top team, with a top-name player, to draw in the other teams.
But the top names were very few and all either from the pro teams or Deland. He had it all figured out, but that one missing piece of his puzzle was going to be hard to find.
While we were talking, we had been joined by local hotshot Jim Hotze (that is actually his real name). Jim introduced himself and asked if I’d like to make a jump. Of course the answer was yes. Then he asked if I had ever done any 4-way; another resounding yes. He went on to tell me about his 4-way ambitions. He had been trying to put a team together for the nationals championships for a few years but still hadn’t ever made it to the meet. He currently had one other guy and was looking for two more.
This wasn’t possible. I couldn’t believe it. Larry and Jim had no idea who I was or what I was doing in Arizona. We were the early-morning boys talking over coffee before the drop zone woke up and came to life. I had just showed up, been out of the shower for less than thirty minutes, and had hardly said a word. I didn’t have to. It was almost as if I had called ahead looking for anyone who was seriously interested in competitive 4-way and they were waiting in the middle of the desert for me when I arrived.
It wouldn’t have been any better had I planned it myself. They were just as shocked when I told them who I was and what my goal was. They had both heard of Fusion and remembered hearing about our jump-off, medal-winning performance at the ’86 nationals. I was the closest thing to a 4-way champion Coolidge had seen in years. Larry and Jim were looking for me as much as I was looking for them.
Unfortunately, Jim’s teammate, Jeff Root, wasn’t going to be at the drop zone that day so we made a plan to jump together two weeks later. In the meantime, we would try to find a fourth person to fill the potential team roster.
Talk about crossing paths. All three of us had basically woken up that morning, thrown our nets out at the first sight of possible teammates, and caught each other hook, line, and sinker. But it didn’t stop there.
When I left Ohio, Mikey had moved back to Tallahassee to finish school. I sent my one remaining Cessna 182 with him so the drop zone there could use it on the weekends. I called him to see how things were going. He told me he was leaving Florida and had decided to finish school in Tucson. Mikey was moving to Arizona! I asked him if he could fly out the coming weekend to jump with us and possibly join our team. He was all over it, had already planned a trip, and could just as easily make it for then.
Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
—Illusions
I didn’t know what we would end up choosing to do with each other, but I was certain that we must have all been drawn there that morning.
I had only been in Coolidge for a few hours and already the possibility of a new team was forming. It would be an inexperienced team that would have a huge way to progress before even being close to where our competition was starting from. Not ideal at all, but after the series of bizarre coincidences that morning, this was definitely a possibility that had to be considered. The most promising options were still in California.
I arrived in Skydive Perris and immediately met up with the Gumbies. I had called ahead to tell them I was coming. They actually had five team members at that point. I made six. We rotated different people in and out and made several jumps that day. Each and every jump was fantastic. Unquestionably some of the best 4-way skydives any of us had ever done.
This was exactly what I was hoping for. If I could put a team together with these guys, we would start from a level even higher than where Fusion had finished and with no limit to where we could go from there. I told the Gumbies about my big plans. I wanted to pick the best four out of the six of us (hoped I’d be one of them) and train full-time until the nationals. With a team of this caliber and an intense training plan, I knew we’d definitely have a good shot at winning.
They were very tempted. They wanted to be competitive, to be contenders, and good enough to possibly win. But like my teammates from Fusion, they weren’t willing to leave their jobs and go full-time. Training weekends was the most they were willing to put toward that effort.
Would that be enough with a team of this caliber? Could we do it with only half as much training? It was possible. But doing the least we could do to have a chance at winning wasn’t enough for me. Not anymore. I was in 150 percent. I wanted to be sure when we arrived at the nationals, there was nothing left. Sure that we had put it all out there, put it all on the line. And I wanted to do it with teammates that wanted it as badly as I did. I headed back to Coolidge.
Mikey, Hotze, Jeff, and I did about eight 4-way jumps that first day. Hotze and Jeff were decent flyers, had lots of natural ability, and certainly showed potential. But it was quite obvious that they had never done any serious team training. The jumps were mediocre, a far reach from the skydives I had just made with the Gumbies. Not even up to the level I had reached with Fusion five years earlier. We would have a ton of work to do before we’d even be close to medal contention. Did they have any idea of what it was going to take? Did they want it badly enough?
They all told me how this was their dream, how they’d wanted to do this for years and would do anything they had to do to make it happen. But would they put their money where their mouths were?
If they really wanted it that bad, all they had to do was answer one simple yes-or-no question. The same question I asked of Fusion and then the Gumbies.
“Will you quit your jobs, move to the drop zone, live in your vans, jump every day, and come up with the $20,000 it is going to cost you over the next ten months to pay for training, eating, and competition?”
There was no hesitation from any of them. The answer was “yes.”
19
The Coolidge Fource
WE NAMED OUR new 4-way team the Fource. (It was ten years later but I still loved Star Wars). We started off at about 6-point average. At the 1987 world championships, the French had won with a 13.4 average. We figured that we’d have to average at least thirteen to win the nationals, more for the world meet. I could see the potential the team had and the effort my teammates were willing to put into it. I knew what I had gotten into, but it was still painful to be skydiving at a level so much lower than what I had done with my previous team. We had a long way to go, so we got right to work.
I managed to acquire videos of the top-three teams. They had different styles and techniques, but each provided valuable tools that we could put to use. We developed our own training plan utilizing pieces of what we saw as well as things I had learned with Fusion.
Within a few weeks, our vans were parked between the saguaro cactuses in the rugged desert terrain surrounding the airport. Mark Price had joined the Fource as our video flyer. We were on the first lift every day, which was usually close to sunrise, and on the last one, which was usually around sunset. We each had only one parachute and were packing for ourselves. We were jumping from Cessna 182s, a 1950s Twin Beech, or a 1940s DC-3. Both the Twin Beech and the DC-3 were old radial engine airplanes that spit out oil like a can of spray paint shoots paint. Our jumpsuits were covered with it. They both sounded like old pickup trucks backfiring on the first start every morning. With these slow planes and without the help of professional packers, it usually took all day to get eight jumps in.
But we were off and running.
20
Finding Work
THERE WAS A large Japanese group of about forty people jumping in Coolidge that winter and amongst them the Japanese National 4-way team, one of the few national teams that wasn’t training in Deland. They saw the progress the Fource was making and asked me if I’d coach them. Since I hadn’t ever actually coached a team, and communication between us was difficult, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was they were asking of me.
I told the Japanese team that I’d be glad to “help them out.” They said, “Not help out, coach?”
I didn’t understand the difference between “helping them out” and “coaching them,” so I asked them to explain exactly what they meant. They wanted to train like the Fource was training. They would be jumping for two weeks and wanted me to plan out all the specifics of their camp. To tell them which type of jumps they should work on and when, and to help them prepare and review each jump as they went. The Fource was training side by side with them from the same planes, so it should be relatively easy to work with them while we were also training. I told them I’d be glad to “coach” them.
They then asked what I would charge them for this service. That question caught me totally off guard. They were willing to pay me for this? I was planning to do it just because I was a nice guy. But I was going broke fast and definitely needed the money. At that point, Piras and very few others were the only people that had ever been paid to coach. I didn’t know what to say or what coaching services were worth. I asked them, “What would you pay me for this?” They asked if $100 a day would be okay. $100 a day! I could eat for a month on
$100. I took the job!
That Japanese team had a great camp. An Austrian team came in to train, saw the Japanese team’s progress, and asked me to coach them.
A little while later, during a short break in the Fource’s training, the University of Colorado team hired me as a coach. Troy Widgery was the captain of the team. Everyone thought he looked like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. While busy with his studies, he also found time to start his own business called Sky Systems, making and selling Tube Stoes—fancy, durable, tubular rubber bands used when packing a parachute to stow the lines in and control their release during deployment.
After having the business open for less than a year, the entire skydiving industry was under the impression that Sky Systems was a huge operation with a big factory and international production. When I traveled to Colorado to coach his team, I discovered the truth. The entire business basically amounted to Troy, a big supply of superglue, a pair of scissors, and a special tool he designed to “stow” one end of the tube into the other. He asked me to keep it under wraps, afraid it would cut into sales if people knew the truth.
A born marketing strategist, he had personally put his team together and had taken great care in the team-selection process. His other three teammates were all beautiful, blonde, college coeds. I did my best to maintain a professional approach.
I imagine it was because I could see right through his cool façade, to the true Troy who was plenty cool enough on his own, that he and I immediately hit it off.
Meanwhile, the Fource was making huge strides. Other teams saw this, wanted to achieve the same results, and offered to pay me to show them how. I had hoped I would coach teams someday, but I had no idea the opportunities would come this soon. They just materialized without me actually planning anything. Apparently, I had sort of created a job for myself. The coaching jobs kept my gas tank and stomach full so I could spend everything else I had on team training.
The Fource was jumping nearly all day every day. Jump, land, pack, debrief, prep, jump, land, pack, debrief, prep, jump . . . We didn’t miss a load. It quickly became apparent that my new teammates had lots of natural ability and unlimited potential. With talented rookie players like that, it is common to make huge gains right from the beginning as the team first finds out what they are capable of. We were seeing the results and we liked what we saw. The clock times of our moves were getting faster, and the scores were consistently going up. But it was only the beginning, and there was still so much more to do.
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SOON AFTER I had started jumping, Gramps had his first fight with cancer. Cancer had never met a tougher man with a stronger desire to live than my grandfather. Each time it returned, he beat it back, only to have it return again.
There came a day when he was rushed by ambulance to the hospital, but the doctors told him that nothing more could be done. They didn’t think he was stable enough to go home and didn’t know when he would be. The next day, I called their apartment to check in on my grandmother and was shocked when Gramps answered. He told me that he had enough of being in the hospital, so he just got up and left. He hadn’t been able to walk in, but through his determination, he walked out. That’s my gramps for you.
I flew out to New York the next day. The eighties had been a very rough decade for him, but this was the worst I’d ever seen him. I was shocked by how physically weak he was, so small and frail. As weak as his body was, his mind was still sharp and his attitude and spirit as strong as ever. I was sitting in my grandparents’ living room reading while he was napping when I heard his faint voice calling me. He needed help getting up to go to the bathroom. He was so weak I ended up having to pick him up and carry him in my arms.
The man who had carried me since birth, who had been there for me anytime I ever needed him, who in my eyes was the biggest, strongest, most powerful man on the planet, and I was carrying him to the john. It killed me to see him like this. Both of us laughed it off. Even in this condition, he was still trying to heal with humor.
I stayed with him for about a week, and miraculously, little by little, day by day, he became stronger and even stood taller. It wasn’t long before he and Grandma didn’t need me to stay with them. Soon after that, he was basically back on his feet and was even traveling to visit his kids and grandkids. He wanted to live and refused to lose.
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I RETURNED TO the Fource. We trained with the same intensity and effort after three months into it as we had the first week. But the initial pace of improvements a new, talented team sees when they start training doesn’t last forever. We were quickly flying as a team up to the potential of the individuals. Once that happened, we leveled off. The move times and scores were up and down. We weren’t advancing at the same rate as we had enjoyed in the initial months of training. Sometimes it felt like we weren’t advancing at all. Mistakes became more obvious and improvements few. Self-doubt often took the place of confidence, and at times, frustration stepped in where youthful enthusiasm was dwindling. We kept at it, put our noses to the grindstone. We had to fight through the disenchantment of getting stuck at the plateau. Jump, land, pack, debrief, prep, jump, land, pack, debrief, prep, jump . . .
