Good morning Prag Obots!
Today’s Olympian is Ryan Bailey.
(Rocky Start Belies Finish, AP, July 17, 2012)
Just a few years ago, sprinter Ryan Bailey was living out of a car with his mom, hanging out with gang members and failing in school. Not exactly the typical path a sprinter takes to the Olympics.
The 23-year-old Bailey looks back at those days and shakes his head in wonder, hardly believing he’s become an Olympian. This from a kid who once was stabbed three times on a city bus and once had to endure a severe beating just to escape gang life.
This from a kid who slept in the front seat of a car, because they really had no other options, and was briefly booted out of school.
“It just seems so unbelievable I’m here,” said Bailey, who will compete in Monaco on Friday before arriving in Birmingham for training camp. “I sit back and think, ‘Wow, I could be like a couple of my friends — in jail or dead. I could be right there with them. But I’m not.”
No, he turned that page of his life.
At the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in Eugene last month, very few knew of Bailey. He was simply the runner who finished third in the 100 meters, taking a back seat to Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay. . .
While growing up in Oregon, he lived for stretches at a time in a white Suzuki Esteem with his mom, Debra Galban, who suffers from fibromyalgia and degenerative arthritis, making it difficult for her to work. His father wasn’t in the picture. When he wasn’t staying with one of his sisters, Bailey stretched out in the front seat, since the back of the car was crammed with their belongings.
One of his mom’s most prized possessions was an Olympic coin she found. Nothing elaborate, Bailey thinks it might have been from Dairy Queen, but it meant the world to her. That coin — with the Olympic rings carved on the back — became the embodiment of what her son could achieve.
“She said all the time, ‘You’re going to be there one day,’” recounted Bailey, who’s trying to get a passport for his mom so she can watch him race in London. “She always believed that.”
First, though, he had to get his act straightened out. Given his size (6-foot-4, 180 pounds), Bailey was a natural on the football field and played several positions. Had his grades been better, he might have been looking at a football scholarship.
Track didn’t even enter the picture until his sophomore year. He was staring at the school’s record board and boasting how he could easily break those marks. Walking by just then was John Parks, the school’s track coach at the time and the person who would serve as a father figure. Parks called Bailey on his bravado.
“He said, ‘If you’re so bad, come out and join the team,’” Bailey said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever. I’ll be there sometime.’ I said that so he would leave me alone.” Only Parks wouldn’t let it go. Especially not after Bailey showed up on the track one day to run a lap before lifting weights. Unbeknownst to Bailey, Parks hit start on his stop watch to record the time. Bailey finished in 51 seconds. Not bad for hardly going all out.
“He was smooth, like he was sliding on ice,” said Parks, who turned over Bailey’s training to coach John Smith after seven years and now plays more of a support role as his manager. (more)
