I have been involved in sports my whole life. As early as I can recall, my first real sports memories occurred in two paradigms, one as an active participant and the other as a fan. My early participation memories was as a gymnast. At around age 6 I was already deeply into climbing trees, tumbling on the lawn, jumping off of closets etc. My mom’s solution was to enroll me in gymnastics at the Wanderess Club. My first coach was a guy named Phillip DeWett, and I am amazed that I remember his name 60 years later. Gymnastics was fun. I had great body awareness and pretty good balance and good hops and until I broke my arm when I came off the high bar doing giant circles, I was fearless. I still remember getting my arm set, waking up in hospital with a cast, and trying to figure out how that happened. I was hard on the cast, so much so that the doctor put another layer of plaster on the cast which made my arm so heavy that when they took the cast off, my arm went up in the air as high as my shoulder. I found that amazing.
As a fan, my first real engagement was getting to go into the commentary box while my Uncle Anthony, who was the Highlands Park commentator, with my cousin John who was a or two year older than me.
Once I started elementary school, I was enrolled at the Kingfisher Swim Club in swimming and diving. I remember starting out as a Tadpole and trying to make Salamander at the club. It was up the road and around the corner from home, so I used to walk there. Some of my favorite memories of being in elementary school was that the fields, also up the road from me, were great to fly kites which I used to make with friends. We also use to play gaining grounds, a rugby kicking game, in those days. Mostly though, we used to play soccer and especially 3 and in when we were too few to make a game. My friends Grey and Anthony and I use to do that just about every day it seems.
As I got into the upper grades at elementary school, I mostly played soccer at school, and did gymnastics at the Wanderess Club. I played so much soccer that my skills developed pretty quickly, and when it came time to make the school team, I was selected as…..the goalkeeper even though I was the tiniest kid on the team. My fearlessness got Mr. MUller’s attention. He eventually dropped me to the B team because I got mad at a kid who scored an own goal and didn’t catch his cue to apologize on time. Oh well. I had fun on the B team too. In the summer’s we played cricket and I fancied myself as an off-spin bowler. My dad took me to a cricket coach who had nets at his home, which is where I learned how to create a really wicked kick with my balls. I would aim my ball outside the off leg side forcing the batsman to step toward the ball, which would then take a wicked kick toward him forcing him to try to get out of the way so he was not out LBW (leg before wicket), and often enough, if he was able to avoid getting hit, I would bowl him. Such fun. Unfortunately, spin bowlers are low in the order, coming in closer to the end of a game so I did not get as much practice in primary school as I would have liked. When I got to High School, those kids knew how to face me, so I often gave up a lot of runs to get a wicket.
Between visiting the zoo with John and Mandy near their home, I got to play tennis on their court and swim in their pool. John really taught me how to play tennis, which is something I did well into my 40’s.
It was really when I got to high school that I got to play multiple sports. First of all, I went to a rugby school, so I was immediately recruited onto the Under 13’s as the Scrum-half. Being the number 9 meant that I pretty much ran the game, sort of like a quarterback in American football. I played rugby up till age 16 when I got my bell rung and my gym coach grabbed me by the collar and walked me off the field saying, “Rugby is for watching, nobody should play it!”
I also took up fencing which was really fun. The other sport I played that was new for me was Field Hockey. We just called it hockey, mainly because we did not have ice hockey in our awareness. Field hockey is the hardest sport I played by far. I was pretty fit in those days in that I was playing sport year round, and still I found hockey impossibly hard. I was recently in Vancouver BC with the local pro rugby team, and on the field behind us, a hockey game was in progress. Even watching it then with all my accumulated knowledge, it seemed incredibly hard. Those athletes were gassed!
Of course I was mainly a gymnast in High School, where I received half and then full colors by securing representation for Southern Transvaal in competition, and in my senior year, I won 6 gold medals and the trophy for the top score total of the competition. At the Nationals a week or two later, I was not on my game and was only able to win a Silver Medal on the floor, and a Bronze on the vault. I was an all rounder in gymnastics. This means that I was competent on all 6 apparatus. I had a good sense of each of them, and was able to swing with clean lines on the bars, the rings and the pommel horse. I was able to keep the rings still (they really are called the Still Rings), and I was an excellent tumbler and vaulter. I could stick all the landings. The hardest apparatus in my opinion, is the pommel horse. You are always a moment away from being thrown off the horse due to the centrifugal forces you are generating spinning around over a single point of contact. I used to enjoy gymnastic camps during the school breaks, where the crazy maniacs we were would do things like compete with each other to see who could climb the most flights of stairs on their hands (I managed 5 flights for the win.) The true highlight of my career occurred a year earlier, 1975, when I was selected to represent South Africa in the Gymnastrada that was to be held in West Berlin. I loved that trip, my first to the continent, my first on a Jumbo Jet, and not only did I get to enjoy the real freedom of West Berlin, but I also got to experience Checkpoint Charlie and was able to walk through still bombed out East Berlin. I still have a fondness for ordering “Bratwurst Mit Brod” (sausage with bread) when I get a chance. They served the hottest mustard with it too. The other thing I really loved about Berlin was that at 17 we could go into a pub and order a kids beer. As I recall, it was sort of a beer shandy. Porn was everywhere, there were “real fuck shows” and for us sheltered South African kids, It was really eye opening! One thing I remember from that trip, was being able to buy Made in Japan by Deep Purple, an album that had not yet come to South Africa. Like I said, I LOVED that trip. Being a good gymnast in High School meant that when I would go to the gym on recess and even during practices in the afternoon, there was a small army of girls that used to come watch me train. (I was a bit too naive to take advantage of that until one evening at a party, a girl named Jennifer, pulled me to one side and kissed me passionately. As you can imagine, we hung out for a few weeks after that.
My favorite out of school sport was squash, which I played well through college when I could find the yellow dot ball. My friend Eddie and I used to to the Wanderess Club to play squash and the after match drink, Ginger Beer with milk, was our go to recovery drink, LOL. One thing I remember about those days is that after squash, and after we took a shower, we got to play snooker in their beautiful wood paneled and quite dark snooker room, the only light being over the full size table.
The other reason we would go to the Wanderess Club was to watch Test Cricket in the big Oval. It’s interesting because after living in the States for 50 years, I can say that I have not watched professional cricket since the 1970’s. Last week as I write this, I was flipping channels looking for a live Arsenal game on FUBO, when I ran across live professional cricket in England and wow, not the game I remember. Colored uniforms, a white ball, face masks and BIG hitting. I don’t think it was a test match because the batters were going nuts with 4 and 6’s. Pretty fun to watch for a minute, and to try to answer Heather’s questions that came a mile a minute, “What’s a wide?” What’s covers?” What do they mean off leg?” “Does the same batter face all the bowlers?” “What’s an over?” and on and on. Luckily the Arsenal game came on pretty quickly.
Growing up in the 70’s, my favorite team was Highlands Park. We were a great side and more importantly, it was fun to go to the games with Malcom and Rex and Howard and occasionally Derrick. We had great seats behind the bench and it was just super fun. At the same time, we all supported different teams in England, I supported Arsenal along with Malcom, but Derrick supported Leeds, Rex supported Liverpool and Howard supported Manchester United. Funny thing, Highlands Park played in the same uniforms as Man U. Being an Arsenal fan from afar was always a bit challenging, but there was a weekly magazine called SHOOT that gave me all the updates. When I moved to the States, there was not football on TV and the local newspapers were so colloquial that there was no news of English football at all. It wasn’t until about the late 80’s, early 90’s that finally the EPL landed on TV. Till then, the only football I had been able to watch each week was German! There was a PBS show “Soccer Made in Germany” that put an hour of soccer on TV each week. I felt like a mainline addict watching that show since I followed no German teams.
The one thing that did make its way onto American TV was World Cup Soccer, and on occasion, there would be a cup final of one kind or another. I remember one sunday randomly finding the Arsenal v Newcastle FA Cup final on the tube. I sat in my mom’s dining room watching the Arsenal. I have gotten to see Arsenal play in person twice, once in 1976 and once in 1977 when I was luckily passing through London and Arsenal was playing in town.
Now of course I am a HUGE Arsenal fan and its made even better because my sweet wife is also a HUGE Arsenal fan, so we plan out weekends around the game! Such fun.
Before I left for the States, I spent about 9 months at Wits and played soccer on the Arts Department team. It was a very good side, and I was among those who tried out for the Varsity team. One weekend my friend Errol invited me to play as a guest in their cup final, which I did, ultimately delivering the game winning cross to the center forward, Dave, who headed home in the dying minutes
When I got to America, I made the choice to give up gymnastics. I was invited to the gym to watch a workout and the combination of the smells and sounds and the caliber of the athletes had me realize that I had already spent about 12 years of my life in the gym and what I really wanted to do was play soccer. I found a corec team at the U and that started my playing career in earnest. I also volunteered to teach an intro to soccer class on the Husky Stadium field. At that point, I only had cleats, so when I went to teach the class and found it was on the astroturf field, I was a little surprised. Naturally, the first thing I did was roll my ankle. Let’s just say I limped through the class, and purchased turf shoes at the first opportunity. It was about that time that my uncle introduced me to a fellow who managed semi-pro team called the Mueller Barrons. It was my first introduction to playing on Astroturf. Not the kind we have today, but the kind they had back then, essentially a thin carpet over a concrete slab. I hated playing on it. When it was dry, it was sticky and the ball bounced like it was on a concrete slab, which it was. But, when it was wet, which it was a LOT since it rains here all the time, the ball skipped and skidded, something I was just not used to. Also, the players played soccer like it was American Football and they had no finesse, so, even though we got to practice with the Sounders, I chose to find a team that played on grass. I contacted the Washington State Soccer Association and talked to them about the fields. Eventually, I learned that the 3rd division teams played on grass. I reached out to the teams one by one till I found a team that was looking for a player. I found a team called Homegrown, that wore green, and even though I have a thing about green jerseys (I am not fond of them), I joined the team. For the next few years, till I started PT school, I played with them. We had a really good side and we played great football. We practiced and got better, and competed for trophies. We eventually won the league right before PT schools started, so I quit to focus on my studies.
When I was in college, the Sounders played soccer in the Kingdome, and we used to go to the games. It was fun to have pro soccer in town.
During my undergrad schooling, I met a guy named Brian, who was in the Prosthetics and Orthotics program. We had similar prerequisites, so we found ourselves in the same classes. We got chatting and Brian told me he raced sailboats. I had always wanted to sail, so he took me down to the boat house, we took out a Laser 2 and he taught me. One day, Brian invited me to go sailing with him. Well actually, he invited me to be ballast on a big boat, an Islander 40 named “Bravado”, in an overnight race. I took to it like a duck to water, I LOVED racing big boats. For the rest of the summer, I went on a weekend race just about every weekend. I also took out small boats at the UW Boathouse and worked on my boat handling skills.
While I was in PT school, I befriended a woman, Bobbi, who was in a class a year ahead of me. She told me that she and her husband were going to buy a racing sailboat. Well, actually, as I remember it, sailing came up because she and Roland, her husband, lived on a 40 ft sailboat moored at Shilshole. In any event they purchased a Thistle, a one design racing boat with a 30 ft mast and fractional rig, and invited me to be a crew. It turned out that there was a fleet of Thistles racing mid-week out of Leschi, a community on Lake Washington. I met them down at the dock and we put the Yellow Bucket in the water and started working on sailing efficiently. Roland was at the helm, which meant that he had the tiller and responsibility of the mainsail trim, I was the middle crew, which meant that I was responsible for the sail trim on spinnaker and jib, and Bobbi was the foredeck crew, which meant that she was responsible for sail sets and the spinnaker pole as well as also being good ballast on the high side. As we started racing, we came together pretty quickly as a crew and set our sights on qualifying for the Nationals at the end of the following Summer, which gave us at least one season to get good enough to quality. The Nationals were to be held on Flathead Lake in Montana. We would go away for races too. We went to San Diego for an open ocean race as well as racing on Mission Bay. We went to Eastern Washington to race on the Columbia, and, in fact, that was a race where we got de-masted three weeks before the nationals. Our mast was wooden, and it splintered tearing our brand new racing sales. Roland was pissed. A 25 cent screw that held the shroud in place had sheared off causing the diamond that supported the mast to fail and the force of the sail just buckled the mast. It felt like we hit a wall. That was a long drive home after we got towed to shore.
One weekend I got invited to go to Victoria in BC to race Flying Dutchmen, a good size keel boat that has a 3 person crew. As a crew, we were way to light for that boat so we were not as competitive as we could be. I remember one moment from that race though. We were on the outside and another Seattle boat was on the inside, very close to the shore. The air was better there, so it looked like they made a good decision. Our skipper said, “no local boats are going on the inside,” which was profettic because almost instantly, there was a loud BANG and that boat on the inside came to a dead halt having struck a rock so hard, that it broke his keel. On big boats, we often ran aground tacking up the beach to stay out of the current, never so hard that we could not push off with the spinnaker pole or a boat hook. One time, I was on a big boat in a race to the ocean and back. So, that means up the Sound, into the Straights of Juan De Fuca, out to a mark in the ocean and back to Seattle. We came into the Straights under the spinnaker, and the wind was blowing HARD. We noticed that most of the boats ahead of us were jibing to a head sale because they could not carry their spinnaker in the strong wind. Our skipper thought that we could do so because we were a 50′ boat, so we jibed. What happened next was amazing. In this boat, there was a tiller instead of a wheel. The skipper was leaning on the tiller to keep the boat from rounding up, which would have been a disaster in that air. But, the tiller snapped at the deck and we were rudderless. Imagine mayhem. We let the shute go and it was fluttering in the breeze. the spinnaker took out the radio antenna, so we had no communication. On top of that, the engine flooded and we were drifting onto the rocks. Next, we fired flares to get the attention of the committee boat, and thankfully, it came roaring to our assistance. We got towed back to shore and had to make our way home in a rented van.
I graduated college and took a job locally, but continued to race sailboats with Bobbi and Roland, and big boats on the weekend with Brian. I was dating Melissa by that time, and we used to do 10 fun runs to stay in shape on Saturday mornings when I was not racing boats. In those days, I was trying to get into American sports, and the Seattle Sonics were pretty good, so I purchased Sonics tickets and took in Pro Basketball. Those were the Michael Jordan days, and the league was full of excellent players. The Sonics were pretty good though, so it was great fun. I used to go to the games with a friend Bob, who really understood basketball. We had tickets just below the commentary box, so we used to get the stat sheets at half time. those were fun days. We also occasionally got tickets to the Seahawks, and while I enjoyed the spectacle, I never really understood the game. Compared to rugby, it just seemed like a lot of standing around. Make a play, have a committee meeting. That was the game. I never really took to it. It was about at that time that the UW unveiled their new stadium, so I got tickets to the opening and took my sister Sue, who was visiting. She LOVED the halftime show, and to be fair, I had never seen a marching band in person before, so it was impressive.
One quick note here is that Melissa and I got our Diving Certification, and we went on to get our Advanced Diving Certifications in advance of taking a Dive Honeymoon on Kauai.
During my early career, I played a LOT of tennis and golf. I got obsessed with golf, practicing and playing and reading about golf a lot. I combined my interest with my work and both produced a golf fitness video and wrote a book about golf fitness. I played enough to shoot one round at even par. It was downhill after that. WHile I still play occasionally, its no longer a passion. One part of my golf book was on the sports psychology of the game. I became quite a good coach with that point of view. I actually wrote a youth soccer coaching book titled “It’s Only A Game”
My next foray into sports after I gave up racing sailboats was getting my soccer coaching license. Actually, the way it worked out was that I had a 6 year old and I tried to register him for soccer on Mercer Island, where we lived. The youth soccer club told me to pound sand, so I set out to create a new soccer club and hosted kids who had not registered for a weekly clinic I put on on my own. First they tried to kick me off fields, but gradually they saw the best way to deal with me would be to have me serve on their Board. I agreed and set out to create a Micro Soccer program for 5 and 6 year olds on the Island. I am happy to say that it was and remains a very successful program some 30 years later. As my son aged, I felt it important contribute to his soccer learning. Naturally, I coached his youth team, and when he got selected for Premier soccer, I volunteered with his coach to support him. As my other kids aged into soccer, I began to coach them as well. It was through all this coaching that I chose to earn my Coaches Badges. I started with the D license and eventually got my C license. A fellow I met at the coaching clinic, Bryan, was the Mercer Island High School Girls coach, and he asked me to join his coaching team as the Freshman Coach, which I did. The next year, I coached the high school Junior Varsity team, my one son’s Premier team, the other son’s Club Select Team, another son’s rec team and my daughter’s micro soccer team. Lets just say I was very busy in addition to work. Of course, I also coached every other sport they played. Baseball, and basketball as well. I did this through the Boys and Girls Club, and with the help of Basketball for Dummies, and Baseball for Dummies, I learned about the rules and the games. Let’s note that I coached 34 seasons of youth sports! We also used to go see the Mariners in the King Dome when they played there, and when they moved into the new stadium, it was a local happening. The Ken Griffey years were great baseball years in Seattle. They also had a great BBQ vendor, Dixie’s BBQ” in the stadium. I remember one day I went to a game with my brother Derrick. He purchased a hot link and pork sandwich, and put globs of their hot sauce, called “The Man” on his meal. As he did so, I told him that he probably should not overdo it. He ignored me as his his way. We go to our seats, and just before the National Anthem starts, he takes a bite of his sandwich. His face turns BRIGHT red as the heat of that sauce, which they usually put on your sandwich with a toothpick, lit him up. Ultimately he could not bring himself to swallow, and he stood there looking like he was going to pass out till the anthem finished, then we went and spit out his bite. I laughed my ass off.
At the same time, I joined an over 40’s men’s team on the Island and played once or twice a week. It was a lot of fun.
Due to my work, I got involved with several active athletes and groups of athletes, which meant that I was invited to attend the Track and FIeld World Championships with one of the American Marathon runners, Mike, and I was also invited to be on the Sports Medicine Team for USA Rugby because of the work I did with Old Puget Sound Beach, our local Premier Rugby Team. I LOVED the time I spent with the Seattle Rugby Club and the OPSB boys. It was great fun for an old athlete like me.
After that, I shifted the focus back to me. For too long, I had put my health to one side and being depressed and sad about my failed marriage, I pretty much drank a bottle of wine each day while I couch surfed. One day a friend who was selling custom made men’s clothing talked me into letting her sell me some clothes. She measured me and I was embarrassed. I had gained so much weight over the years, so I there and then made the decision to make a change.
I started walking on the treadmill, and one of my patients said, “Hey Neil, great to see you on the treadmill, how far are you going to walk?” I laughed and said, “As fat as I am, I need to walk to San Diego!” we all had a good chuckle. But I thought about it and it made sense. If I walked on a treadmill up a 10% grade, I reckoned that by the time I walked 1,000 miles (about how far it is to San DIego), I would have both walked 1,000 miles and climbed to the top of Mt Everest twice! I figured that if I did that, I would lose weight. It took me some time, but I made it to San Diego and found myself about 60# lighter as a result!
Recently, although I had not regained the more than 15#’s of weight I lost Heather and I started working out again. I, having learned from my last experience, made the choice to go on another virtual journey, this time, rowing (on my ERG) to Hawaii, a journey of over 4,000 miles. I am just about 3 months in and have covered 667 KM so far and lost those 15#’s I gained. According to my medical scale, I have another 20 or so to go.
So, where things stand. First my attention is on my health status, with Heather and I rowing and working out daily along with eating better. Second, my true sports love is Arsenal after that, the Tour and the Vuelta. After that, any international Rugby or Track and Field. Naturally I watch every event at the Olympics, even rhythmic gymnastics! When I remember, I also watch the Americas Cup races too. I still love watching Formula One, the Netflix show is the best way to watch it in my opinion. As you cantell, my full attention is still on sport and competition as it always has been, and I still cry during medal ceremonies the the Olympics too! I Love competition. A lifetime of competing has been wicked fun!
My latest excursion is that I am rowing and watching the Tour and pro cycling in general. I row 10,000 m a day, and row every mile that the cyclists ride. At this moment I am rowing the 2024 Tour and I have to give Tadej Pogacar mad props. What an athlete.
My Life: A Memoir 