When Katie Uhlaender’s father showed up to watch her compete in the 2008 skeleton sledding world championships in Altenberg, Germany, she knew right away something was wrong. His right eye didn’t look right.
Ted Uhlaender, a former Denver Bears outfielder who played in the big leagues for Minnesota, Cleveland and Cincinnati, admitted he’d gone blind in that eye but didn’t want to tell his daughter the frightening truth. He made up a story about hitting his head while working on his farm in Kansas, suffering a concussion.
“I said: ‘Dad, look who you’re talking to. I think I know a little bit about concussions. It’s not a concussion. What’s going on?’ ” recalled Katie, who lives in Breckenridge. “He said, ‘Well, I’m getting some tests done, the doctor thinks I have cancer.’ ”
Ted didn’t quite make it to the world championships this year in Lake Placid, N.Y., succumbing at age 68 to complications from multiple myeloma two weeks earlier on Feb. 12. Having won World Cup season titles and world championships medals the past two seasons, Katie raced through her grief and finished seventh.
“Just so empty,” Katie said last week, tears trickling down her cheeks at a Wheat Ridge coffee shop. “Nothing in the world would have stopped him from coming to that race.”
Ted Uhlaender was featured on the cover of The Sporting News (“Twins Thumper”) in August 1968, the year he finished fifth in batting (.283) in the American League. When he died, Katie lost more than a father, she lost a role model, a best friend and the only man who always knew the right thing to say concerning her athletic exploits.
“He was the man in my life,” said Katie, 24, “the one I turned to.”
He was an old-fashioned, no-nonsense guy — Katie says the crusty Clint Eastwood character with a heart of gold in “Gran Torino” is just like her dad — who believed self-esteem was something to be earned and coddling was no way to parent. When Katie’s brother scored 28 points in the first half of a basketball game, Ted wanted to know why he didn’t bother to play any bleeping defense.
“He just made me feel really proud to be a Uhlaender,” Katie said. “He made me feel proud to be an athlete. He taught me work ethic. He taught me perseverance and determination, taught me quitting is not an option. He said you either do it right or you don’t do it at all.”
The Uhlaender way was sorely tested this past winter. Katie knew her father’s time was short and wanted to be with him, not traipsing around Europe competing on a sled, but he refused to let her come home. Over the Christmas break he wanted to know why she wasn’t winning the way she once did.
“I said: ‘I’m having a hard time. I want to be there with you. The Olympics mean a lot, but the Olympics aren’t until next season,’ ” Katie said. “I was like, ‘I want to come home.’ He told me: ‘You are there to represent your country, you’re the No. 1 girl and you have responsibilities. I want you to be there.’ ”
It didn’t help that those around her on the circuit, while trying to be helpful, just made things worse.
“Everyone kept giving me pity looks, they kept wanting to pet me, looking at me like they felt sorry for me,” Katie said. “My dad would never do that. He would tell me to quit feeling sorry for myself, quit crying and do your job.”
Katie also had to work through guilt. Having dominated the sport, she didn’t win a race this season and made only one podium. There were good reasons, but Uhlaenders don’t believe in excuses.
“The only regret I have is, I know I didn’t perform at the level I could have,” Katie said. “I did the best I could, but I feel disappointed in my performance because I let myself feel bad, I let myself feel guilty, and that would have been unacceptable to him. . . . My ultimate goal is to live up to my dad’s legacy and live up to what he taught me — be a Uhlaender.”
Katie passed through Denver last week en route to her father’s farm, where she will spend a month or two getting his things in order, then begin training for next year’s Olympics. She has little doubt she can dominate again.
“I know what to do. I’m already prepared for it,” Katie said. “My dad gave me all the ingredients. He’s coached me enough to where I know what to do. Now I just need to heal, and I’m going to be stronger when I come out of this.”
Her brother, Scott, agrees.
“She’ll be fine,” Scott said. “She will completely refocus and go for it. The world championships were tough, because his death was only two weeks earlier. I don’t think she had a chance to grieve yet. She will take care of that now. I think she will come back with her mind set on the job at hand, and I think she will make it happen.”
