THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608220145
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 87 lines
AS SCOTT RYAN will tell you, there's more than one way to participate in the Olympics.
As he'll also tell you, qualifying for the team wasn't an option for him.
Although the 1988 Princess Anne graduate was a quarter-miler and jumper on his high school team, he had no illusions about his ability to compete with the big boys.
``I ran in college,'' he said, ``but it's kind of hard to stay active when you're a sprinter. People look at you funny when you run such a short distance, then stop.''
Still, Ryan made up his mind early on that, one way or the other, he would participate in the Olympic process.
So when he heard about the program that would allow community heros to run with the flame, he was definitely interested.
He also was qualified.
To be chosen for the honor, the person had to have overcome major obstacles or provided significant service to others. Ryan had done both.
He grew up in Virginia Beach with his mother, Suzanne, and his younger brother, Stephen.
Suzanne Ryan had raised the boys by herself from the time they were 2 and 5. By the time Scott was in high school, it was obvious that both of her sons were college material. But finding the money to send them was not going to be easy on her salary in the mortgage brokerage business.
Just before Scott finished high school, the family's financial situation got worse.
Suzanne Ryan had a bicycle accident that left her partially paralyzed and bedridden for months. ``I went to his graduation in a wheelchair with a nurse to help me,'' she said. ``I couldn't imagine how we were going to pay for his college.''
Then the scholarships were announced. There was one for Scott Ryan from the Norfolk Sports Club, another from the Lincoln-Lane Foundation and a third presented in memory of a Princess Anne student who had died in an automobile accident several years earlier.
Enough help, as it turned out, to get him through two years at Old Dominion University and another two at the University of North Florida where he got his degree in 1992.
After graduation he moved to Tampa to take a job with a medical services organization, an M.S.O. as it's known in the trade.
Along the way, he took the time to help others. He became the assistant track coach at Tampa's Jesuit High School and became active in the charitable works of the Jaycees and the Chamber of Commerce.
A stand-up comic who prides himself on a clean but off-beat act, he put his comedy to work for charity by performing for Tampa AIDS Network fund-raisers.
The volunteer work that he's proudest of, however, is that in which he put his mathematical ability to good use.
``There was this woman in her 40's who had managed to make it all the way to a middle management position in local government,'' he explained. ``Then they discovered that she had never finished high school.''
When her lack of a high school diploma came to light, she was given an ultimatum: get the certificate or give up the job.
The problem, it turned out, was math. She was terrified of it. And because of her fear, she had figured that she would never be able to pass the General Equivalency Diploma exam.
Ryan thought otherwise. For months he met with the woman twice a week. Teaching her the math basics she had never learned was the easy part. Convincing her that she had the ability to pass the test was harder. Ryan managed to do both. The woman passed the exam on her first try.
``I was there to see her get the diploma, right along with her family,'' Ryan said proudly. Her job, finally, was secure.
His work with the woman was one of the reasons Ryan was chosen from hundreds of applicants to carry the torch as it made its way through Tampa.
It was a touching and meaningful moment for him, his wife, Sharon, his mother and his brother.
It also was tinged with the kind of offbeat humor for which he has become well known.
``Some of my friends took pictures,'' he dead-panned when he was in town visiting his family recently. ``The first was of me getting the torch. The second was of me running with it. And the third was of an ambulance following me.''
He intends to have them framed in sequence, a reminder - along with his official picture and the torch which he carried - of his own special Olympic moment. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY KNAPP
Scott Ryan's volunteer work, including his tutoring of a woman to
help her pass the GED exam, earned the Princess Anne High graudate a
spot in the Olympic torch procession. by CNB