ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996 TAG: 9609260014
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
TWO TRAINERS returned from summer vacation bringing Olympic energy to share with athletes at William Fleming and Salem high schools
So what did you do on your vacation last summer?
If you were Chris Tucker or Rob Ransom, you paid your way to the Summer Olympics to serve as one of the many volunteer athletic trainers.
Notice that these two high school trainers - Tucker at Salem and Ransom at William Fleming - paid their way. As trainers, they had to acquire lodging, transportation and food on their own. There were no free rides, but it didn't stop these two from enjoying two weeks of working with some of the world's best athletes and from taking their families along to see what is the world's premier athletic competition.
``Six years ago, when Atlanta was named to host the 1996 Olympics,'' said Tucker, ``they asked for trainers. I applied and they told me I was on a waiting list with 6,000 other trainers.
``Every time they sent stuff, I kept sending it back. Finally, last fall I got a huge package with five or six pages that I had to fill out.''
Ransom saw an advertisement in a National Trainers' Association journal and applied. ``I knew Chris was going to apply. I heard when I got back from Christmas break, New Year's Eve, that I had been selected. I was to be the chief athletic trainer at one of the sites in table tennis.''
Tucker was notified he'd be doing baseball. Both men were pretty happy. Neither of them wound up as trainers in the sports mentioned in the letters. Ransom worked with track and field and judo. Tucker worked with gymnastics, weight lifting, team handball, badminton and fencing.
``There were 800 trainers at the Olympics. All were volunteers. They gave you a shirt and hat. You got free Coca-Colas when you were inside the venue. Otherwise, you paid for room and board,'' said Tucker.
Tucker stayed with a friend in the area.
For Ransom, it was a little more adventuresome. ``I knew about paying my way. It didn't bother me,'' said Ransom. ``We [he and his wife Blair] met some friends through a friend-of-a-friend situation. It was a computer bulletin board and there were some people willing to help out volunteers or athletes' families.
``We gave them a call, went down and met them, and stayed with them for a month. It wasn't tough. They were nice people, a 29-year-old couple with a 3-year old daughter. I'm 28, so we had a lot of fun.''
The two trainers also had a ball working with the athletes.
Tucker's favorite story involves U.S. male gymnast Jair Lynch. ``He had a bad ripper [a callus ripped off his hand]. I was there in practice when he got it. Here was a team trainer, coach and athlete all working together so that he [Lynch] could compete in the biggest meet of his life. That was sports medicine at its best,'' said Tucker.
``We got him to the point where he could compete. He eventually won the silver medal. He invited me to a gymnastics party and I got to meet all the men and women's gymnasts, their parents and their coaches. I even got to hold Shannon Miller's gold medal.''
Ransom didn't get to work with Carl Lewis in track. He worked with many Nigerian athletes, but had no trouble communicating. ``Most of them go to school here in the United States,'' said Ransom.
``I did work with Marie Josette Perec [France], who won the 200- and 400-meters before Michael Johnson ever thought about it. We did a lot of stretching and massage work. That was basically what we did for the athletes.''
Chris Tucker, his wife Kathy and the Ransoms had planned to go to the Olympics as spectators long before the husbands got their positions as volunteer trainers.
``We had purchased tickets over a year ago and so when my family [also children Matt and Julie] came down, we got to see track and field one day, a lot of equestrian events and tennis, and a gold medal men's soccer game,'' said Tucker.
The Ransoms saw the semifinals in women's tennis, a Cuba-U.S. women's volleyball game, a Japan-U.S. baseball game and the men's 100-meter and triple jump finals.
Tucker says he saw some strange things that went against his athletic-training philosophy.
``I saw a man deep squat 700 pounds five times, which is unbelievable. You and I couldn't pick that up. He didn't have a safety belt on. His wrists weren't taped. I thought that was the worst thing you could do and here was the strongest man in the world doing it because he won a gold medal.''
Tucker and his family were also in the Centennial Park Village the night before the bombing. ``You count your blessings,'' he said about not being there the night of the bombing. ``Security had been tight, but after that, it was unbelievable. I got my training kit checked at the sites by U.S. marshals. They'd come in and say, `Let me see what you have in that kit.'''
Now the two are back at their usual posts, teaching courses during the day and trying to keep young athletes ready for competition.
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Rob Ransom of William Fleming Highby CNBSchool (left) and Chris Tucker of Salem High School sport parts of
their official uniforms as Olympic trainers. They help athletes in
all sports reach their potential. color.