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Monday, August 23

Coach travels from devastation to gold

ATHENS, Greece - This gold medal comes with a broken heart. This victory - as dominant as the Olympic Games have seen in years from any sport, any team, any nation - comes with a searing sense of loss.

It comes with a coach in the dugout after the most important game of his life, hugging his children close, mourning a wife and mother.

And with players on a relentless march - a 9-0 record, by a combined score of 51-1 - but left with teary eyes as the sun set in Greece.

On July 16, Sue Candrea, the wife of the U.S. Olympic softball coach, collapsed in a Wisconsin airport with a brain aneurysm during a team trip. The players watched her fall.

On July 18, she died, 26 days before the Olympics.

On Monday, Mike Candrea's team beat Australia 5-1 and won the gold medal.

``I kept rubbing my wedding ring,'' he said when it was over. And also her picture in his back pocket, now worn from his hands. She was 49 and never seemed healthier. But she wasn't here.

``We just cried,'' pitcher Leah O'Brien-Amico would say, ``not to see his wife by his side.''

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How much can a game mean? A team? A purpose?

``I can't even tell you how strong he is,'' said pitcher Lisa Fernandez.

How do you do that? Bury your wife and then go coach in the Olympics?

Before the game Monday, Mikel Candrea stood in the aisle and spoke of his father.

``Looking at what he's done, for my sister and myself and our entire family, it's a motivation to keep going forward.

``For him, this is the best therapy.''

After the game, Michelle Candrea sat in the first row, a daughter blinking back tears.

``He worked so hard to get this for her, and she can't be here, so it's very difficult,'' she said. ``I'm sad and I'm happy. I wish she could be here. But I know she's watching.''

And then her father called out her name, and over the top of the dugout she went, to hug the way families do, when there is something wonderful to share.

Or awful.

Or both.

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``I had a dream last night,'' Mike Candrea said. ``I hadn't dreamed in a long time. She walked in the room and told me to chill out. That was Sue.''

Later he said softball had been his sanctuary, the dugout an escape. And everyone helped him cope, even the opponents.

The coach of the Japanese bronze medal team wanted to give him money for flowers. ``There was no language barrier,'' he said. ``I know she knows had bad I hurt.

``This team was my rallying point. This team has given me, I guess, the courage. Because to me, I don't think courage means that you're brave.

``I will never forget the ride they put me on ...'' Courage allows you to get through the tough times.

Then he hesitated, and lowered his head, and murmured that it was hard. The players knew. Understood they had become not only one of the finest teams ever assembled - winners of 79 straight and so alone at the top that some wonder if Olympic officials will shelve the sport - but one man's life preserver.

``If there's one thing that I prayed to God to do to help him was to play the best softball I could play,'' said Fernandez, her voice wavering more than her fastball ever did. ``Because that was the one piece of solace he was going to have to get him through this time.''

Coaches don't stand on the medal podium. Fernandez said she wished she could have traded places with him.

The celebration went on and on. Who wanted it to end? Because the tough part starts Tuesday.

``I know I have healing (to do),'' Candrea said.

``When we get back home,'' his daughter said, ``everything is going to hit a lot harder than it has. Everything's been moving so quickly.''

From devastation to gold medal, with little time to grieve. To an evening in Athens when a mighty team showed greatness, and how life must go on.

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