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Life's Race Goes On After Wyoming Tragedy
The USAToday.com Feature Story
Sept. 9, 2002
By Sal Ruibal LARAMIE, Wyo. - U.S. Highway 287 winds through the high plains and scrub pine foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a raw and barren landscape not found on any tourist postcards. In darkness, the highway is lonesome and hypnotic, its white lines and yellow stripes just abstract markers in the headlights. At 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001, Nick Schabron was at the wheel of his 1990 Jeep station wagon; seven of his teammates from the University of Wyoming men's cross country team were squeezed in around him, a tangle of sleepy runners just 17 miles from the warmth and comfort of their beds. At that moment, a 10,000-pound 1995 Chevrolet pickup truck coming from the opposite direction slipped across the lines and met the Jeep head-on at 74 miles per hour. One year later, the impact of that collision is still being felt in Laramie. The community will dedicate a monument to the fallen runners Friday. Cross country coach Jim Sanchez got the first call at 6:30 a.m. The grandmother of one of his runners wanted to know if Sanchez had heard that Nick Schabron had been killed in a car accident. Then another call came. This time the caller had heard the number of deaths was four. Sanchez was shaking when he called the university's public safety director to see if he had any information. The coach was told that Schabron and three others were dead, but that there could be more. More calls came in with unconfirmed reports of more deaths. Sanchez sat stunned on the staircase of the log home he had built a few miles from the Wyoming campus. He was counting the dead on his fingers. By the time the last call came in at 1:30 p.m., he had eight fingers extended: Schabron, Justin Lambert-Belanger, Cody Brown, Kyle Johnson, Joshua Jones, Morgan McLealand, Kevin Salverson and Shane Shatto. The driver of the pickup, Clinton Haskins, was a member of the school's rodeo team. He was legally drunk. He survived. The family Of John and Joan Schabron's eight children, five are runners. Greg was captain of the Wyoming men's cross country team two years ago. He graduated and married Kristy Murff, the 2001 women's cross country co-captain, earlier this year. Five days ago, the "Running Schabrons" gathered at the university golf course for the start of the 2002 cross country season, the Wyoming Open. (Related story: Rodeo rider in prison for role in crash) Lining up for the Cowboys was a skinny, 18-year-old freshman with a shock of dark brown hair. Chris Schabron was about to run his first race on the varsity team. Before the race, Coach Sanchez told his runners to focus on just one thought, to shut out everything else. Schabron thought about God as he ran the twisty 4-mile course. One of his black spiked shoes came untied, but he didn't care or notice because he was focused on his prayer. He came through the finish chute well behind the fastest group, but he smiled as he bent over, his narrow chest heaving as sweat dripped off his head. His parents gave him a hug as his friends and teammates surrounded him and yelled, "Way to go, Little Schab!" "It feels great," he said between breaths. "Three hours before the race, I was so nervous that I couldn't make my legs run." His father's emotions were close to the surface. Two years ago, at the same course, Nick qualified for the Wyoming travel team, an unexpected accomplishment, but one that the exuberant local boy embraced. When the accident happened, John Schabron was in Calgary at an energy conference. He got the call at 6:30 a.m. that sad Sunday. Because of the 9/11 tragedy the week before, he could not fly home. A group of his co-workers quickly created an auto shuttle that relayed the grief-stricken father home. He arrived at 3 a.m. Monday and had to immediately go to the crash scene to retrieve the Jeep's registration papers. "There was literally nothing left," he said. "The truck just went right through it." The family could not bear to clean out Nick's room until two weeks ago. "Our family has become much closer because of this," the elder Schabron said. "But we'll never feel whole again." He prefers not to talk about Haskins; several civil suits are pending. "I'm not going to get eaten up by hate," says Schabron, tears welling. "When that happens, you might as well just hide in a hole." The coach Jim Sanchez has been head cross country coach at Wyoming for 22 years, a disciple of famed distance coach Dr. Joe Vigil. The day of the crash, he had taken the team on a hard run in nearby Snowy Range. "They were looking like a good team," Sanchez says. "But they hadn't quite jelled. So we went to the Snowies for a 12-mile run to Lake Owen. Something happened that day, something brought them together. They had become a team." Even after driving 40 minutes back to campus, the runners were still happy and close. "After a workout, they usually go their separate ways, but on that afternoon, they wanted to hang out together, share in each other's company," Sanchez says. When news of the crash reached the rest of the men's and women's squads, the kids began arriving at the Sanchez home. It was something they were used to; the coach and wife Roni had open doors for their athletes. "That morning was so terrible," Roni Sanchez says. "We were trying to keep a list of who was dead, and our hearts were just aching so much." Especially close to her heart was Cody Brown, an energetic and outgoing senior who found time in his hectic schedule to watch the two Sanchez children while Roni underwent therapy for bone cancer. "When we couldn't reach him on his cell phone, we called Kmart, where he worked, hoping that he was already at work," she says. "His boss was angry that he hadn't showed up. That's when I knew." A fan of Superman, Jim Sanchez was a Man of Steel at the eight funerals. But when the reality of the situation hits his gut, the 50-year-old coach heads for the hills. "This is my Fortress of Soltitude," he says as he drives the Moe-Bile, a dusty green Chevy Blazer, into the pine-covered ridges east of Laramie. The Moe-Bile used to belong to Morgan "Moe" McLeland, but his parents gave it to Sanchez after their son's death because they knew he had no university vehicle at his disposal. "Whenever Superman got some Kryptonite down his shorts, he'd head to his Fortress, mess around with some crystals, get his head back in the game. These hills are sacred; these trails are my sanctuary." His family had been through so much already. Roni has undergone 12 operations, but the cancer keeps attacking her bones, making them brittle. She can hardly walk, but she's already planning a Halloween party for the men's and women's teams. "I was the caregiver," her husband says, "but she's the caregiver's caregiver." The new team A month after the crash, it was time to get back to business. Volunteers from the men's track team - where Sanchez is an assistant coach - stepped up and began running for the new cross country squad, which included three runners from the original team. Three redshirt runners also returned to eligibility. Then Coach Sanchez had to begin rebuilding for the 2002 season. He traveled more than 7,000 miles - most of it Wyoming and Colorado - to sign up fresh talent. "Some people had the audacity to call me up and say they knew we had some openings and could they get a scholarship," he says. "Unbelievable." Full athletic scholarships are rare: Wyoming has only 12.6 to cover the men's and women's track teams, which include cross country. "Most of our guys had academic scholarships," Sanchez says. "Our team grade-point average was 3.78. It is very difficult to replace kids like that." He has put together a young but promising squad with two returning runners, two transfers and four freshmen. The men's team placed third at the Wyoming Open. The design for the memorial to the eight runners features a bronze plaque that reads, "Come Run With Me," with eight large stones and eight pine trees. "I told the groundskeepers to keep the dirt under the trees," Sanchez says. "These guys were all about dirt and rocks and trees and sky." The runner Joel Hess was not with his teammates that night. The redshirt junior from Glendale, Wis., had other plans. A year later, he's one of the team's starters at the Wyoming Open. A pre-med student with a 4.0 average, he's also a talented artist and writer. He designed the artwork on the memorial plaque, an abstract of eight runners in a pack. On the first day of the new season, he tried to keep his focus on the race. "It brought back a lot of memories," says Hess, who finished the race in the middle of the pack. "I thought about last year, running side by side with Kyle Johnson." He wrote a poem about his lost friends for the track team's media guide. In part, it reads: It seems of late, That you crested a hill And I cannot climb. You have taken a path, And I cannot follow. If I seek the courage To mimic your stride, Perhaps upon a day When my spikes have been hung, We shall rise again
For another run.
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