Star athlete tried new ways to beat his Lou Gehrig's

By Mark Zaloudek
Published Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last updated Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 1:51 a.m.

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA

Steve Fahrer, a star athlete in high school and a nationally ranked sailor in his 20s, wanted to add one more achievement to his string of accomplishments.

He hoped to beat Lou Gehrig's disease, but lost his extraordinary, seven-year battle on Wednesday. He was 34.

The former Riverview High School standout underwent an experimental operation in China in 2004 that yielded brief results and hoped to pursue other unconventional treatments at a University of California neurological research center co-founded by actor Christopher Reeve, who died in 2004 of complications from a spinal cord injury.

Fahrer tried many unproven therapies over the years, hoping something could reverse or delay his declining health, said his mother, Betty Fahrer of Palmetto.

"We were grasping at straws," she said. "Steve was so special, and he wanted to be the guinea pig to show the world what worked."

He believed stem-cell research may be the best hope for people with degenerative neurological conditions.

"He kept saying, 'Go ahead and experiment on me. We're running out of time,'" his mother said. "Once he was committed to something, he did it."

That fortitude led to him earning three gold medals in weightlifting in the national Junior Olympics at 16. The following year, he was defensive captain of the Riverview football team in Sarasota that reached the state finals in 1990.

As a teenager, he also excelled academically and as an artist and wrestler.

"He was called 'The Renaissance Man' because one evening he won a county weightlifting meet, but he also won a blue ribbon in a county art contest the same night even though he couldn't be there," his mother said.

He also mastered sailing. He placed third in the Stiletto Nationals in 1997 and was among the top finishers in national races in 2000 and 2001 for 21-foot sailboats.

Fahrer was looking forward to rebuilding a damaged European racing boat and returning to the water someday.

"He named the boat Phoenix because he said both he and the boat would rise out of the ashes" like the mythological creature of the same name, his mother said.

Fahrer worked for his parents' sailboat equipment business, Atlantic Sail Traders, for many years. They credit him with expanding their Sarasota-based business globally by developing its Web site long before other businesses turned to the Internet.

The Fahrers' only child also enjoyed playing the drums in rock bands in Florida and Georgia before he gradually began to lose the use of his limbs.

In addition to his mother and father, Jerry "Bud," he is survived by his fiancée, Vicki MacKay; a grandfather, Joe Mullins of New Mexico; an aunt and uncle, Ralph and Marilyn Bryner; and cousins Kristy and David Bryner and Geoff Norcross.

Visitation will be 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Toale Brothers Funeral Home, Colonial Chapel, Sarasota. Services will be 1 p.m. Monday at the funeral home, followed by burial at Sarasota Memorial Park.

Memorial donations may be made to The Clinic of Angels, 9804 N. 56th St., Tampa, FL 33617, to help people with extraordinary medical expenses.