a story worth reading. from sports illustrated a couple of weeks ago.
It Doesn't Get Any Tougher Than This
Posted: Wednesday August 25, 1999 02:27 PM
The toughest coach who ever
lived is not Rockne or
Lombardi or Parcells.
The toughest coach who ever lived is skinny as
a foul pole, won't step on spiders and wears
pigtails.
The toughest coach who ever lived is a 110-pound wisp, Dawn Anna, who
twice now should've died on the operating table, only to live through something
tenfold worse.
Anna, 49, the girls' volleyball coach for the past seven seasons at Columbine
High, has something in her brain that makes her world spin every waking hour.
A divorced mother of four who has remarried, she has coached while holding
an IV bag in one arm as it dripped medication into the other. She has coached
when she couldn't feel half her face, when the gym went black, when she felt
like throwing up. But those weren't the tough days.
The tough days started on April 20. That's when she found out that last year's
captain, Lauren Townsend, the school's 4.0 valedictorian, had been murdered
while studying in the school library. Lauren was Dawn's youngest child.
"You know, I always told my kids to be careful crossing the street, and I told
them to be careful riding their bikes," says Dawn, "but I never thought to tell
them to be careful studying in the library."
That Dawn even had Lauren pretty much broke the bookmakers. Two times
during the pregnancy doctors told Dawn they feared she had miscarried. In
the delivery room they said extensive hemorrhaging should've killed her and
her baby. Didn't. A year later Dawn was teaching Lauren to walk, urging her
on, arms wide open.
In 1993 Dawn's world started rolling like a fun house barrel. Doctors found a
jumbled mass of blood vessels in her cerebellum. During a preoperative
procedure her carotid artery was inadvertently cut, and Dawn could see blood
pooling fast on her shoulder. The doctors said she could've died. Didn't. As
part of her recovery from brain surgery, Dawn had to learn to walk again.
This time, Lauren taught her, urging her on, arms wide open.
Even though the dizziness remained, Dawn went on to become one of the
better volleyball coaches in the state. Four years ago Columbine won its first
girls' volleyball conference championship in 20 seasons. After that, with
Lauren as their best blocker, the Rebels didn't finish below fourth in the
10-team conference.
Last summer, just before Lauren's senior season, doctors cut Dawn open,
hipbone to hipbone, to remove ovarian cysts. That should've stopped her.
Didn't. Two months before she was supposed to start coaching again, she was
coaching again. Columbine didn't win it all last season, but Dawn's players got
the award for the highest combined GPA of all 5A girls volleyball teams in the
state: 3.89. "I kept coaching because I wanted to be with Lauren," Dawn
says. Yeah, well, who didn't? Lauren was everybody's friend. Honors Society.
Worked daily at a small-animal hospital, even on Christmas and Easter.
Then came that morning in April: Lauren and her friends sitting at the front
table in the library, explosions shaking them, Lauren saying, "This is a wicked
senior prank," finding out how wicked it really was, hiding under the table but
not nearly well enough and taking 11 bullets from both gunmen. This was the
jock the shooters wanted?
This week Columbine started practicing under a new coach and a new
captain. After last season Dawn had decided to quit to help Lauren during her
first year at Colorado State. This was the week she was going to move
Lauren into her dorm. Instead, Dawn, tougher than a Woolworth steak, is
finding new ways to cope. "It's life," she says, red-eyed. "It's not supposed to
be smooth. Everything bad that's happened has always had something good
come out of it. It's just, with Lauren, we're still trying to figure out what that
is."
Well, how about this?: There are plans to use a memorial fund in Lauren's
name (303-778-7587) for a college scholarship to be given annually to a
Columbine student. And Dawn has dedicated herself to helping make other
people's kids safe in other libraries. "There're too many guns out there," she
says. "Way too many."
Meantime, there's another mass of vessels, this time on Dawn's brain stem.
Maybe it will kill her, but probably it won't. She's ready either way. "Those
first two times, I think God was preparing me for Lauren's death," she says. "I
found out death is calm and peaceful. That's why I know Lauren didn't
suffer."
When the toughest coach finally goes, may she arrive in a place that sits
perfectly still. And may her captain be waiting there, urging her on, arms wide
open. |
