Gymnastics coach battles Lou Gehrig's disease
By Glenn Miller
January 27, 2008

NEWS-PRESS.COM
Fort Myers Resident Fights Deadly Disease

Photo Gallery: Debra Roe's battle



They knew her as “Miss Debbie.”

Not “Coach Debbie.” Not ma’am. Not Miss Roe.

Generations of children have trooped through Gymnastic World since the 1970s. To all, Debranne Roe was “Miss Debbie,” an eternally smiling, singing and laughing instructor.

Roe, 56, still smiles, laughs and maybe even sings a bit. The Fort Myers resident’s days of teaching gymnastics, however, are over. She is afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease, a neurodegenerative illness also known as amytrophic lateral sclerosis.

It’s a battle that can’t be fought alone. That’s why friends and former students have scheduled a fundraiser for Feb. 3 at Lakes Regional Park in south Fort Myers. The friends are finding out about ALS, a disease that can wipe away any smile and stifle any laugh.

She received the diagnosis from a Miami doctor in October.

“He just told me and I just burst out crying,” Roe said, sitting on the couch in her living room, next to two of her fluffy white cats, Chloe and Zada.

She cried that day and has cried more since.

Lou Gehrig’s disease is relentless, siphoning the strength from muscles, one by one, until victims can’t move, can barely breathe and blink. It can start anywhere in the body.

“I just have it,” Roe said. “I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to let it get me.”

She likes pointing out the positive such as the disease attacked her right hand first. It’s now into her right foot and affecting her speech slightly.

“Thank goodness I’m left-handed,” said Roe, who likes squeezing visitor’s hands with her left hand, displaying the strength she needed to help youngsters in the gym.

She knows the future. Her 55-year-old brother, Gary Francis Roe, died from the disease on April 18, 2006. She cared for him. “I saw him deplete so quickly so it was hard on me,” Roe said.

Now her friends want to be to her what she was to her brother. “We want to make sure Debbie is taken care of,” said Gymnastic World owner Chris Brooks.

Brooks met Roe in the 1960s at Fort Myers Junior High, cheered with her at Fort Myers High and was her employer for more than 30 years and remains a friend more than 40 years after they met.

Miss Debbie

Most of the little girls Miss Debbie taught in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are grown. Many have their own children.

Some started a tribute on myspace.com. They’re organizing that fundraiser. They’ve printed stacks of fliers promoting the fundraiser and Web site.

Roe has no children; two siblings are dead. She lives with four cats. And insurance covers only so much.

Roe has help, however. Her ex-husband, Carl Seits, is aiding in her care. Brooks is helping. So are former gymnastics students such as Virginia Burford and Julie Johnson.

Burford called Seits as soon as she heard the diagnosis. “She had given her life to kids and birthday parties,” Burford said. “I knew she wasn’t going to have much to face this with.”

They’re giving back, helping in any way they can.

“I want to give Debbie that boost,” Burford said. “To show how much she’s cared for, to give her that day. ... I want people to come out. ... Come by and give her a pat on the back.”

Word is spreading through the gymnastics grapevine, former students telling one another, mothers telling daughters.

Fort Myers resident Channing Billups, 25, learned gymnastic basics from Roe when she was 7 and 8. Roe was her first coach. She called her “Miss Debbie.” “Everybody did,” Billups said.

Billups, a Fort Myers High graduate who went on to earn a master’s degree in English from Old Dominion University, recently heard about Roe’s diagnosis.

Billups remembers the singing gymnastics coach from all those years ago. “What really stands out is that with Debbie learning a new skill was never unnerving,” Billups said. “She just encouraged you with such certainty and energy. She had more energy than anybody in the room.”

That’s the coach Ashley Lawson, 25, also recalls. She competed in gymnastics at Southeast Missouri State. She’s now married, residing in Spring Hill and expecting her first child in July. She began gymnastics at the age of 2. Lawson remembers the nursery rhymes and the songs Roe made up, little ditties to the girls that included lines such as this: “Meet me in the hallway.”

Now, as her old coach battles ALS, Lawson wants to call but is hesitant because she knows the voice on the line won’t be the same one that sang to her 20 years ago.
“I have a hard time convincing myself to call her,” Lawson said. “She’s OK. She’s OK. But she’s not going to be the same Debbie Roe.”

Confronting the future

Roe has been around Southwest Florida gymnastics since before Channing Billups and Ashley Lawson were born. Tucked away in Roe’s home is a 1976 clipping from The News-Press with a photograph of Miss Debbie spotting a girl on a balance beam.

Now, those youngsters are helping Roe battle a rare disease. About 5,600 Americans are diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease every year and at any one time about 30,000 Americans have it, according to Amy Dunham, spokeswoman with the Florida chapter of the ALS Association.

The organization lists 56 Southwest Florida residents with ALS, 27 in Lee County, 20 in Collier County and nine in Charlotte County.

The disease has been in the spotlight for a decade with Mitch Albom’s 1997 best-selling “Tuesdays with Morrie.” A Gehrig biography, “Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig,” by Jonathan Eig, was published in 2005.

Although the disease and its victims have been in the spotlight and may give the impression more Americans are contracting it, the percentage of Americans with ALS has remained stable, according to Durham.

Her Life

Debbie Roe lives in a downtown Fort Myers apartment. She likes downtown eateries such as the Hideaway Sports Pub, French Connection, Morgan House and Joe’s Crab Shack. She’s excited about the convenience of the new downtown Publix.

She reveled in marrying Carl Seits, who is 12 years younger. Did she rob the
cradle?

“I did,” Roe said with a laugh. “I loved it.”

They were married nine years and divorced in 2005. Seits, a surveyor, has monitored the disease since it slowly began robbing his ex-wife of her strength and flexibility even when she was in denial before the diagnosis.

Then came the diagnosis and the end of her coaching. On her myspace page, her occupation is listed as “retired gymnastics coach.”

“I just loved kids,” Roe said. “Never had any of my own and everyone I taught was just like my own.”

Now, the students are helping the teacher and the teacher is still showing them how to fight.

“I’m going to fight this,” Roe said. “You can bank on it. The best I can.”


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