Competitive for life

Gene Steinmeyer

About 27 years ago, I heard from a friend about a basketball player from York, Nebraska. My friend had been the girls’ coach at York High School. He had a state championship on his resume.

My friend was one of the most imaginative coaches I ever met. He changed the girls’ basketball nickname from the school’s Dukes to his own unique nickname, The Super Ducks. He even had a teacher in a full duck outfit zipline onto the court when the team came out for warmups. The duck would even referee little kids’ games at halftime.

My friend hardly ever recommended one of his players. He had quit coaching a couple of years earlier, but he wanted me to know about a special kid by the name of Merri Kaye Bell.

Merri Kaye wasn’t a flashy player. She was just short of six-feet and could run like a deer. She only had a 10-foot shooting range, but she had something special about her, something my friend saw in her.

Her senior season, I went to see her play against the No. 1 team in her team’s classification, Lincoln Pius X. Pius had much more talent, but Merri Kaye scored 28 points and York fell just short, losing by four points. After the game, Merri Kaye barely gave me a glance as she headed for the bus.

Merri Kaye’s coaches — the basketball and volleyball coaches — weren’t very complimentary. They had seen how Merri Kaye had blown me off. They said she could be a jerk like that and suggested I didn’t want her on my team.

Merri Kaye wasn’t being a jerk. She hated to lose. Most athletes would be strutting around, proud of their 28 point production. Not Merri Kaye. She was mad as hell because her team had lost. Thank goodness I recognized Merri Kaye’s competitiveness and kept recruiting her.

I don’t think I really had much competition from other colleges to land Merri Kaye at Doane College. She verbally committed before the state tournament. They had been beaten by a power-house in York’s division the last game of the season, but it had gone into overtime. Merri Kaye had been unbelievable, tearing up the team loaded with NCAA Division I talent, but York still came up a little short. I’ll bet Merri Kaye was really mad after that game.

In the state tournament game against the same school, Merri Kaye only scored four points and her team was blown away. What most people didn’t know is Merri Kaye was sick. When most kids wouldn’t have played the game, Merri Kaye wasn’t about to stay on the sidelines. I didn’t even try to talk to her after that game.

Merri Kaye was a great long-jumper in track. At the state track meet, she jumped her personal best, the second best jump of any athlete in any class. As I went to congratulate her, she slammed into the chain link fence and barely blurted out a “Thank you.”

Her dad pulled me aside and asked if I still wanted Merri Kaye despite the silent treatment she had given me for the second time her senior season. Merri Kaye wasn’t a jerk, she was one of the fiercest competitors I had ever recruited.

Merri Kaye did have one fault. She was very shy. Her dad told me after graduation from college he didn’t think Merri Kaye would last two weeks away from home. As luck would have it, her roommate was an extravert. She never shut up. They immediately became best friends and Merri Kaye was able to concentrate on college basketball.

Despite playing limited minutes as a freshman, Merri Kaye became a star her last three years at Doane College. Merri Kaye was never flashy, but she could out-run any post player she faced. She never increased her range beyond 10-feet, but she could out-run and out-jump her competition, so it didn’t matter. Merri Kaye also was much more competitive than anyone she faced.

After her last game at Doane Coillege, after all the awards including being an NAIA All-American, had been handed out, this ultra-shy high school kid had become Doane College’s all-time leading scorer. Merri Kaye had talent, but more important, she had a competitive fire that burned more intense than anyone I had ever met.

Merri Kaye met Cole Bradley in college and married shortly after graduation. She had two children, a girl who is now a volleyball player at Fort Hays and a boy who is still in high school. As proud I was of Merri Kay as a player, the most special moment came almost 20 years later.

The night I was inducted into the Doane Athletic Hall of Fame, things started with a meal. After the meal, someone close to each inductee was asked to introduce them. Merri Kaye, the ultra-shy high school kid, got to the podium and put all the other speakers that night to shame. It must have been that competitiveness that allowed her to win yet another battle.

This past Sunday, Merri Kaye left her home just outside of Crete to coach a junior high volleyball team in Lincoln. Even though her daughter was off to college, she still gave her time and talent to coach younger players. At 6:40 a.m., a car crossed the center line and hit Merri Kaye’s car head-on. The passenger in that car died on impact. The collision was so severe, the man died despite having his seat belt on and the air bag deployed.

Merri Kaye was belted into her seat, too. On impact, her elbow shattered and her wrist dislocated. More seriously, her liver was lacerated and her spleen ruptured. Merri Kaye was trapped in her car for 45 minutes and she was slowly bleeding out.

They life-flighted her to a Lincoln hospital, barely alive and in very critical condition. I wasn’t there, but I suspect most of the people on the rescue team didn’t give Merri Kaye much of a chance.

They determined that Merri Kaye didn’t have any brain or spinal damage. She wiggled her toes and gave the nurses a thumbs up. But Merri Kaye was bleeding out. The doctors had to repair her liver, remove her spleen and try to replenish her lost blood.

Anyone that gave up on Merri Kaye was just plain foolish. Just like her high school coaches, Merri Kaye proved them wrong. About mid-afternoon, Merri Kaye rallied. Still critical, Merri Kaye is now stable and the doctor’s prognosis is “guardedly optimistic.”

The doctors apparently don’t know Merri Kaye very well. If they did, the doctors would have removed the word “guardedly.”