An Olympic dream vanishes

Arizona Daily Wildcat Craig Degel

He went to my elementary school in Simi Valley, Calif. The same school where his mother was a kindergarten teacher.

Toring was an All-American water polo player at UCLA - where he won two national titles - and a lock to make the men's Olympic team for the Sydney games in 2000.

But his Olympic dream came to an end Monday night at a hospital in Crece, France, when his body finally succumbed to injuries suffered after he was hit by a bus the week before.

He was 23.

I hadn't really seen him in 10 years - I'd caught some of his high school games and some of the ones at UCLA that were on ESPN2 while I fought off insomnia.

The water polo team at my high school was good. Good enough to win 17-straight league titles. But Toring could have captained the team by age 12. So, consequently, he went to a much bigger high school with a much bigger water polo team. You don't hear the word prodigy often where I come from. Our claim to fame is that former UCLA star and NBA flameout Don MacLean grew up there.

But Jim was certainly a prodigy, destined for Olympic greatness. In a sport like water polo, that's the best place to find greatness. The low-profile of his sport was suited for anonymity. Ironically, it was with the same kind of anonymity that I learned of his death. It got a one-line mention at the bottom of a column in Tuesday's Arizona Republic.

Death is a tragedy at any age but we all tend to stop and reflect a little bit longer when it's a young athlete who is cut down in his or her prime.

It has happened twice in my time here. Twice too often. Damon Terrell was one month away from being the starting tight end on the Arizona football team. He collapsed on the practice field and died a month later, having never left the hospital. He should still be alive, maybe playing tight end somewhere.

Julie Reitan should still be patrolling left field at Hillenbrand Stadium. Only her uniform number - 10 - remains, retired for all-time and left on the wall as a reminder of who she was. Perhaps, even, who she could have been.

Who they could have been. That's a list with names far too distinguished.

Hank Gathers, Len Bias, Reggie Lewis, Steve Prefontaine, Roberto Clemente, Thurman Munson. The names scroll like a list that serves as a wake up call that there is something bigger going on here than runs, points and split times. At the risk of sounding trite, something like this makes you think. At any time, the life we have mapped out for ourselves can take a sudden shift. A shift which we have no control over. A shift that makes us wonder what happened to the invincible 21-year-old who was sitting here just a second ago.

Toring was a tower of a man. He seemed to be 7-foot tall by sixth grade. In truth, he was about 6-6 with hands and feet like flesh-covered oars that were built to move gallons of water at a time out of the way. He was built for speed and power and it was a surprise to me to not see him in Atlanta two years ago while he was an alternate. He was too good not to be there. He and the U.S. National team had just taken the silver medal at the French Open. I expected to see him in the Sydney Games.

Far too often, though, we are reminded that life doesn't always work the way we expect it to.

Craig Degel is a journalism senior and covers men's basketball for the Arizona Daily Wildcat.