From wheelchair, track coach fires up her team
Sports Stories, 2003
Packet #1
USA TODAY
Trackwire poll that has LSU No. 1.
University of Texas women’s track coach
Beverly Kearney gathered her team recently for what one athlete called “the
usual” pre-national championships speech.
Only this time the setting and delivery were
different, the impact compelling.
“I’m going for the win,” says Kearney, 45,
who has won four NCAA titles at Texas and
one at Florida. She won’t be with the team.
She’ll be celebrating a personal victory,
being cleared to leave St. David and go
home for the first time in three and a half
months.
The spirit of a woman who watches videos
of practice in her hospital room will be with
the Longhorns. “It was a very lifting speech
to see somebody telling us to fight in the
condition she was in previously and is in
now,” hurdler and 400-meter runner Raasin
McIntosh says. “If you don’t want to be the
best you can be after that, if you’re not
moved, then something has got to be wrong
on the inside. We’re going in there like we
have nothing to lose.”
Kearney was in a wheelchair in Room 326
of the St. David Rehabilitation Center in
Austin, where she been much of the time
since an auto accident took the lives of two
friends and left her with a spinal cord injury that has prevented her from walking.
The Lady Longhorns will compete in the
NCAA Indoor Championships in
Fayetteville, Arkansas. They’re No. 4 in the
Sports Stories 2003
Packet #1
The team takes its cue from a coach who
vows to walk or at least stand from her
wheelchair at the Texas track during the
upcoming Texas Relays. Kearney has had
three operations since the accident in
Sanderson, Flaorida, which came as she,
Ilrey Sparks, Imani Sparks, Muriel Wallace
and Michelle Freeman were going to
Disney World.
Freeman, a world-class hurdler, lost control of an SUV that crossed the median on
Interstate 10 and rolled several times. She
Advantage Press, Inc.
I am. I feel they’re still inside me. I want to
be the best for them.”
Kearney also draws on the lessons of a difficult life. She was the sixth of her mother’s
seven children, fathered by five men.
“I can’t begin to tell you what we went
through,” she says. “My mom abused alcohol; my father wasn’t around much. We
had every vice in our family and around us
- drugs, alcohol, prostitution.
and Imani Sparks, 3, were not seriously
hurt. Ilrey Sparks, an academic counselor
for athletes, and Wallace, Freeman’s
mother, were killed. Like Ilrey Sparks,
Kearney was ejected from the vehicle. At
first, Kearny felt as if she were in a dream.
“Everybody adapts to that environment differently. I became determined not to live
like that. How I knew there was a better
life, I don’t know. It’s not like I had examples around me.”
“I was in the hospital laughing and joking,
not knowing I had a huge bandage on my
head with staples in my scalp and scars all
over my face,” Kearney says. “As I became
more aware, I didn’t want to see myself that
way. I refused to see myself as a cripple.”
Her mother died when Kearney was a high
school senior. Kearney was on her own after graduation. Helped by junior college
coaches, she earned a track scholarship to
Auburn, while also financing, through government need-based Pell Grants, her
younger brother’s college education.
Despite a positive attitude, she has had low
moments. The worst came when Kearney
opened a letter to find a card containing a
picture of Ilrey Sparks.
“I’m a person bent not on surviving but
succeeding,” she says. “There was no question I was going to college. What I didn’t
“That was the point everything hit me,” she
says. “I was also going through some pain
and everyone - therapists, doctors, nurses,
specialists - was telling me what they
wanted me to do. I was overwhelmed.”
Kearney finds inspiration in the memory
of her lost friends. “I miss them dearly,”
she says, “but they’re in a better place than
Sports Stories 2003
Packet #1
Advantage Press, Inc.
understand at the time is that whenever I
got to a point where I didn’t know where to
go or felt alone, God always provided
someone to help me through.
“They didn’t carry me. They helped me.”
That’s what Kearney wants to do in coaching. “I want to help kids make it,” she says.
“I want to be the bridge, not the road. Too
often people impassioned about helping
others want to be the road. You can’t carry
people. You can help them get to the other
side to continue their journey.”
Kearney’s recovery is ahead of schedule.
She’s using a walker and has shed a back
brace four months early. She dates her rapid
progress to a revelation last month.
“I’ve always been the giver,” she says.
“God told me it’s time to allow people to
give back. That’s a blessing as much as giving.”
Sports Stories 2003
Packet #1
Advantage Press, Inc.
Sports Stories 2003: Questions for Packet #1
Name _________
Answer each question in the space provided. If you need more room for your answers,
use the back of the page. Make certain your answers are in complete sentences. Be neat
and spell correctly.
1.
Why was coach Kearney in a hospital room and not with her team before the
NCAA Indoor Championships?
2.
Where does Kearney coach?
3.
Detail Kearney’s record in national competition.
4.
Why did Raasin McIntosh say her coach’s speech was “very lifting?”
5.
Where was Kearney headed when she was in the accident? Who was with her?
Sports Stories 2003
Packet #1
Advantage Press, Inc.
6.
What indication do you have that Coach Kearney was not entirely aware of what
happened to her?
7.
Describe Coach Kearney’s lowest moment.
8.
Kearney said she had a difficult life. Describe some aspects of her life that made
it difficult.
9.
What do you think Kearney meant when she said she is “a person bent not on
surviving but succeeding?”
10.
What do you think Kearney meant when she said “I want to be the bridge, not the
road.”
Sports Stories 2003
Packet #1
Advantage Press, Inc.
Sports WordSearch 1
__________
Name
Find the hidden words and circle them.
E
T
U
E
W
A
G
V
O
C
S
D
W
A
L
L
A
C
E
H
P
S
E
E
Y
L
S
U
C
C
E
E
D
I
N
G
E
I
I
A
R
M
L
E
C
C
S
C
H
R
A
K
E
A
R
N
E
Y
R
C
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Sports Stories 2003
D
N
N
R
R
O
S
A
P
W
N
T
N
B
M
I
O
W
S
C
R
C
U
E
F
H
U
T
N
R
S
I
T
R
P
R
N
T
N
S
N
R
I
U
I
O
L
P
A
L
E
I
D
I
E
R
R
F
N
A
I
I
Y
R
A
L
D
F
R
P
A
E
P
D
U
R
Y
Y
I
L
R
P
L
A
A
D
E
I
W
L
L
U
A
G
I
S
H
P
E
G
T
P
N
E
I
D
U
V
L
H
N
E
B
E
A
A
O
N
R
C
H
L
G
R
U
G
A
E
S
E
N
A
S
U
S
C
C
R
S
L
R
E
L
U
L
K
A
A
I
F
E
B
R
G
R
I
D
A
S
O
E
C
N
L
L
C
B
O
W
O
N
F
F
T
H
N
E
V
M
N
E
R
H
N
S
A
S
E
Y
U
I
T
C
B
O
S
I
K
E
G
L
P
A
R
T
R
A
O
R
R
W
R
H
I
E
P
E
C
E
H
C
I
I
O
A
R
I
L
E
T
T
T
I
T
E
I
S
A
L
O
R
W
C
E
U
Y
E
L
R
H
E
E
I
P
T
R
N
P
U
R
L
H
L
W
I
A
E
I
A
I
L
S
N
L
C
A
W
N
A
N
O
M
C
I
N
T
O
S
H
G
S
H
Y
L
C
T
A
P
C
S
O
V
F
L
R
C
H
E
E
I
S
A
H
P
S
I
L
A
H
R
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Auburn
Freeman
Kearney
Longhorns
McIntosh
Sanderson
Sparks
Wallace
alcohol
bridge
Packet #1
C
T
O
F
N
I
I
N
Y
I
P
N
N
O
W
O
K
P
R
T
O
H
S
S
E
C
A
B
R
O
A
D
W
D
C
N
I
S
K
C
E
N
I
N
C
I
Y
I
A
L
R
A
C
I
E
P
N
H
A
T
S
D
L
O
K
E
P
R
A
S
K
D
A
C
L
R
G
N
U
A
R
E
A
E
E
Y
W
K
Y
I
S
E
N
I
S
A
S
N
U
A
L
W
H
E
E
L
C
H
A
I
R
C
S
K
R
R
R
O
C
U
R
S
S
E
E
T
P
E
R
E
B
L
S
N
U
R
A
I
N
K
R
R
R
W
I
E
G
D
P
O
S
Y
P
R
W
L
T
W
D
O
E
A
W
W
G
R
M
P
L
E
C
F
R
E
E
M
A
N
K
R
carry
cripple
five
fourth
inspiration
staples
succeeding
three
walking
wheelchair
Advantage Press, Inc.