Disabled, he enables others to see future
Saturday, March 03, 2007
LAKE OSWEGO A thletics is full of cliches on overcoming adversity. But in the past three seasons, the Lake Oswego High School football team has come face to face with a man who reveals the truth about the old football bromide about getting up when you are knocked down.

The irony is the bearer of the message can't get up on his own anymore.

Jeff Young has battled amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, for 23 years. The insidious neurological disease has confined the former college fullback to a wheelchair. Today, Young struggles to speak and takes two hours -- with the help of caregiver Kathe Lachmann -- to rise in the morning, shower and dress.

When the disease was first diagnosed in 1984, doctors said he would be dead within five years. But Young lives -- and what a rich life he conceives every morning. He has raised a daughter, Priya, now a senior at Lake Oswego High School, reconnected with his passion for football and inspired friends and strangers through daily messages e-mailed from his Web site, www.friendsofjeff.com

"As important as your past is in determining your behavior, it is not nearly as important as how you see your future," Young writes in one of the messages he sends to more than 1,600 people.

Young, 43, occupies the same room he had as a child in the rust-colored ranch on G Street. He lives with his parents, Donna and Hal Young, and his daughter. His room is outfitted with an electric bed, and an electric page-turner so he can read books. In the corner is a computer where he painstakingly types messages using an on-screen keyboard. He can move his hands just enough to use a mouse.

Young is not immune to melancholy. When asked how he chases depression, he simply says that he counts his blessings. The blues flee in the image of his daughter's smile or the e-mails he gets from the many people he touches each day.

"Most of the hopes and dreams of my youth were washed away with the advent of ALS in my life," he writes. "Yet my hopes and dreams of today are no less grandiose than before, just different. After much soul searching, I decided to embrace the opportunities afforded me by my new condition.' "

Not many people would use the word "opportunity" to describe a dreadful illness. ALS is incurable. It relentlessly steals motor functions until patients finally lose the ability to breathe.

Young says the disease has taught him two major things: That people are capable of doing far more than they think and that life is a mystery.

"You never know," he said. "I would never have dreamed this would happen to me."

One of the unexpected life twists has been the way the crippling disease has given him a platform to motivate athletes.

Young's love of football dates to grammar school when he first saw Miami Dolphins fullback Larry Csonka. Young was a soccer player and a baseball fan until the Hall of Famer came along.

"When I saw Larry Csonka play," he said Friday at his home, "I said that's the one I want to be."

Young was an all-league fullback at Lake Oswego High and pitched for the baseball team. He walked on at Southern Oregon and started for three years. He preferred to run over opponents rather than feint them. It's a trait he brings to bear against ALS.

About four years ago, Young became friends with Steve Coury, the Lake Oswego football coach. Coury had been receiving Young's e-mails and asked Young to write a weekly letter to his football team. The letters became a Monday tradition for the Lakers.

Coury wanted Young more involved and invited him to speak to his team before a critical game against Clackamas in 2005. While the players strained to understand Young's voice, his message came across loud and clear. He told the boys they needed to put together 48 passionate minutes of football to beat a good team such as Clackamas. Young handed out T-shirts to eight players. On the front were the words: "LO 48."

"That slogan now is all over every exit from our locker room," Coury said. "The kids tap it on their way out to the field."

Coury now considers Young a member of his football staff.

"I tell our kids that here is a guy who once sat exactly where you are now, in this locker room," Coury said. "I think Jeff's impact on our kids will be more far-reaching down the road."

Young remains undaunted by a disease that would make many of us crumble. He lost the muscle control to play his beloved guitar. He lost the ability to walk or use his hands or pursue a career. But it's not what Young lost that matters most, it's what he found.

Against all odds, Jeff Young found a noble niche, one devoted to helping others gain insights that came at such a price for him.

"My life is difficult. I cannot walk and am confined to a wheelchair. I cannot lift my arms and my hands are almost completely useless. I am barely able to speak and every day the disease that ravages my body takes away another small piece of my life. . . .

"Everyone gets discouraged from time to time, but the real question is -- will you lie in the gutter and wallow in self-pity, or snap out of your despair, rise up and start kicking ***? Until someone can explain to me the value of wallowing in self-pity and giving up on life, I'll just have to keep kicking ***."

(Young's story will be the subject of a feature Sunday on ESPN's SportsCenter, which is scheduled to begin about 7:30 p.m.)

Brian Meehan, 503-221-4341; brianmeehan@news.oregonian.com