Ryan McLean was in the first wave of the San Diego Triathlon Challenge last November along with Olympic gold medalist Amanda Beard. Beard finished the 1.2-mile open-water course in a respectable 19:54. McLean did it in an amazing 47:32 amid the cheers of her supporters.
It was a triumph.
From the rib cage down, McLean’s body floats across the water. Her shoulders, pecs and arms do all the work.
She powered through the waves off La Jolla just like she navigates the world – on upper-body strength and quiet courage, her eyes crinkling as her face breaks into one disarming smile after another.
McLean lost mobility below her chest on Feb. 2, 1997, when the Suburban in which she was riding tumbled out of control and crashed into a van on C-470. She was one of six teenagers in the car on the night of the Snow Ball at Cherry Creek High School. Her boyfriend and the driver of the van were killed. McLean was paralyzed.
Now 26, she’s an assistant swim coach at Creek, where she has taught science classes while earning her master’s degree at the University of Phoenix. She’s applying for teaching positions and swimming this summer, although she won’t be back at her familiar post as swim coach at the Foxridge Swim and Racquet Club in Centennial.
After 10 years as a coach of the recreational team of children from 4 to 18 years old, she was fired this spring.
“I’m nonconfrontational, sometimes to a fault,” she said, “so I just said, ‘OK.”‘ The club president told her he had decided to “go a different way.”
Word traveled fast among the suburban swim-team parents.
While the club president and a parent representative declined to comment, Jeff Mullins, who has three kids on the Foxridge team, said two parents had criticized McLean for not being sufficiently competitive.
Dozens of other parents responded, bombarding the club president with calls, letters and e-mails in support of the coach, who had started swimming at Foxridge when she was 8 years old. But it was too late. A new coach already had been hired.
“Ryan has been at Foxridge forever. Her name’s all over the record board over there,” Mullins said. “I bet you can’t find five people who think she should be gone.”
McLean’s teams were competitive and won a couple of championships over the years, Mullins said, but the team excelled when it came to sportsmanship.
“To say that Ryan is an inspiration and a beloved member of the entire community is an understatement.”
For real.
After the accident and months of rehabilitation, McLean rejoined the swim team at Creek. Without the use of muscles in the trunk of her body, she had to learn to swim entirely with her shoulders and arms. Turning to catch a breath at first was rough. She’d just roll over. “I could only last 20 minutes at practice,” she said.
Then when she’d compete, she had to start in the water. She was behind from the time the gun fired.
“It was really, really, really hard,” she said. “It probably took me a good five years to feel confident again.”
When that happened, it was a pivotal moment, she said. “Suddenly I realized everything was going to be OK.”
Now as a teacher and coach, she uses her life in the chair to her advantage. “It’s not something you teach so much as something you do,” she said.
Children often have unspoken fears about people in wheelchairs, or they think of them as helpless. “With experience they realize you are in fact a person who is capable,” she said.
They stop obsessing on what she can’t do and focus on all the things she can do – really well.
“Once, a 7-year-old came up and said he wished he was in a wheelchair,” she said, laughing. “It desensitizes kids to people who are different.”
McLean is disappointed she’s not coaching this summer, but don’t worry. She’ll get by just fine. She has a house in Kittredge, a new dog. She loves to travel and has been to Europe, Canada, Mexico and Paraguay. She’s got a new racing chair and is thinking about another triathlon.
“The only way to really live your life is to accept your challenges,” she said as she wheeled through a pair of doors and across a parking lot to her car.
The biggest challenge is people who underestimate her.
It’s their loss.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
