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Buckeye Beach Bum
Good luck in your Olympic trials and hope you get to Athens 
Wilson meets personal, career challenges
By Jill Lieber, USA TODAY
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gymnast Blaine Wilson kneels in the Guardian Angel section of Resurrection Cemetery to brush the wilted honey locust leaves off the granite gravestone of his first child, Thade.
Olympic hopeful Blaine Wilson during a workout at Ohio State University last month.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
Wilson, a five-time U.S. champion and two-time Olympian, visits this burial site, located just a mile from his house, several times a month to speak to his little boy, lost shortly before birth in September 2001.
Wilson reaches to touch a branch in the biggest tree, where his mother, Joan, has hung three wind chimes — an angel, a lighthouse and a sun. Their gentle melodies, floating through the June air, he says, are Thade talking back to him. "He's watching over me," Wilson says. "He's my guardian angel."
Empowered by the wisdom he draws from his little boy and the love of his wife, Makare, and their 20-month-old daughter, Wakaya, Wilson begins his quest for his third, and final, Olympic team Thursday at the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials in Anaheim, Calif.
If Wilson is successful in his bid, he would become one of the oldest U.S. gymnasts to make an Olympic team. He turns 30 on Aug. 3, the day before the team leaves for Athens, and he would be one of the most talked about comeback stories of the 2004 Games because of the challenges he has faced the last four years.
"It's my last hurrah," Wilson says. "It's my team. I don't care about anybody else but the six guys on the team. I think we can win the gold."
Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Wilson was nicknamed "the wild child of gymnastics," thanks to his cocky, Hell's Angels approach to a conservative, pretty-boy sport. Multiple tattoos. Numerous body piercings. A passion for motorcycles, bungee jumping and sky diving. And the compulsion to shoot from the lip.
Heading into Athens, however, Wilson is looked upon as the sport's mortal, ancient warrior. Battered by the USA's disappointing fifth-place finishes at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. Torn apart by the death of his unborn son. Beaten down by injuries, including surgeries to reconstruct his right shoulder (June 2001) and reattach his left biceps tendon (March 2).
"His heart and his determination to compete at the Olympic level, that's what makes him such a great gymnast," says Miles Avery, Ohio State gymnastics coach. "He's one of the best in the world at floor, vault, rings and parallel bars, but it's his leadership that separates him from everybody else. The guys look to him as their leader; they voted him captain of the 2000 Olympic and 2003 world teams."
Making this Olympic team, Wilson's family and close friends say, would have a healing effect.
"My motto for Blaine has been: 'You need a medal to go on with your life,' " says Sheryl Shade, his agent. "This time around, it is all to prove something."
Wilson's father Bill, who started him in gymnastics at the age of 3, says, "All he has ever wanted was an Olympic team medal. It would fulfill him."
'Two peas in a pod'
The changes in Wilson began in the late 1990s, when he met his fiery match in volleyball player Makare Desilets, a native of Fiji and a University of Washington graduate, who also was training in Colorado Springs.
It didn't matter that she towered over him: She stands 6-2 and weighs 162 pounds; he is 5-4, 135.
"We're two peas in a pod," Wilson says. "We're not afraid to speak our minds. She likes to deal openly; I like to scream. We're both very stubborn."
He refers to Makare as his soul mate, and his parents say they complete each other.
They were engaged in August 2000, hours after Wilson won the all-around competition at the U.S. Olympic trials in Boston. Makare, who had failed to make the 2000 U.S. Olympic volleyball team, immediately left for Europe to play in a pro league. Wilson, meanwhile, headed to Sydney, where he struggled, partly because his injured right shoulder was pumped so full of cortisone, partly because he missed Makare so much.
"She's my best friend," says Wilson, who finished sixth in the all-around. "I can talk to her about anything. She calms me down. She softens all of my rough edges."
When she announced she was pregnant, they canceled their plans for a big wedding and were married by a justice of the peace in March 2001.
"This was the son he always wanted, the boy who would be 6 feet tall and do all of the sports he never could," Shade says. "So many hopes, so many dreams. It was all he could talk about."
Sept. 10, two days before her due date, Makare awoke at 6 a.m. with sharp abdominal pains. Because she already had experienced false labor, doctors told her not to come to the hospital until she was closer to delivering.
"I asked her if the baby was still moving, but she never answered because she was in so much pain," Wilson recalls.
When they arrived four hours later at the Ohio State University Medical Center, doctors couldn't find a heartbeat. An ultrasound confirmed the worst.
"We were in shock," Makare says. "One moment, we were excited about starting our family; the next, our baby boy is gone."
A blood clot had formed, and the placenta pulled away from the uterus, causing fetal death. Doctors said it was an accident, occurring in one in 10,000 full-term pregnancies.
Then doctors told the Wilsons Makare would have to deliver her son.
"I didn't think it was possible," she says. "I wanted to die, too. Blaine was so good to me. He consoled me. We cried on and off all day. We didn't know what else to do."
Ten hours, and three epidurals, later, Makare delivered Thade Tawake Joseph Wilson.
"He looked absolutely perfect," Wilson's mother, Joan, says.
Neither Wilson nor his wife had wanted to hold their child, but they changed their minds as soon as they laid eyes on him. They cuddled him, took pictures, had him blessed by a priest, then kissed him goodbye. "We would have always regretted it if we hadn't held him," he says.
Trying to cope
A few hours later, the Wilsons checked out of the hospital, and the following morning, they awoke to the horrors of Sept. 11.
"Intense, back-to-back grief," he says. "I thought, 'What the hell is going on?' '
Shade says: "They got swallowed up in 9/11, and everybody else's grief. It allowed them to distance themselves from Thade's death — in less than 24 hours."
A week later, Wilson, who was recovering from right rotator cuff surgery, returned to the Ohio State gym and began running on the treadmill for hours at a time. Makare soon went to Chicago to resume her pro volleyball career. "Working out was the only way to express my misery," he says.
Two months later, Wilson phoned Shade and announced he was going to Athens. But it was months more before he could voice his grief.
"Makare was very open about it. She cried quite a bit, but I didn't cry as much as I should have," he says. "She blamed herself. Because she'd played volleyball during the first months of the pregnancy, she thought she'd caused his death.
"I, on the other hand, was just so angry. We were two healthy parents. Why had God let this happen?"
In early 2002, Makare announced she was pregnant again. This time, Wilson tempered his enthusiasm. He made excuses not to go to her doctor's appointments.
"He didn't want to get connected to something else he could lose down the road," she says.
Of course, the moment he saw Wakaya, he was smitten. She is named for a Fijian island. Her pictures are everywhere in Wilson's house. On the refrigerator. On the computer screen saver. On one entire wall of the living room.
Joan says that Wakaya looks exactly like Thade.
"Without the loss of one child, we wouldn't have another," Wilson says. "She's a precious gift."
Separation anxiety
Unfortunately, Wakaya has been Wilson's biggest sacrifice on his road to Athens. In January, Makare moved to Manhattan Beach, Calif., to compete on the pro beach volleyball circuit. She and partner Tyra Harper are ranked 11th. Wakaya lives with Makare's mother, Meriosi, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wilson has seen his wife and daughter twice in the past 6 1/2 months — Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
Being alone in the three-bedroom house (except for bulldog Kyla) was especially difficult this spring, after his biceps tendon surgery. He worked out four times a day, then hit 100 golf balls into a net in the nursery each night.
"The first thing that came to my mind when I got hurt was, 'This is our best shot, and this is my last Olympics,' " Wilson says. "I was furious. Now I was on a deadline to make my final dream come true."
Since March, Wilson has been pulled to the cemetery often, bringing flowers, balloons and teddy bears, taking comfort in the wind chimes. He would phone Wakaya and say, "Daddy's got a boo-boo." And she would just giggle. But he would confide in Thade as an adult, telling him, "I've hit a rough spot, but things will be all right." Then the melodies magically would begin bubbling through the air.
"I have no problem talking to Thade because he always listens to me," he says. Recently, he asked his mother, "When I die and go to heaven and meet Thade, will he be little? Or will he be my age? Because I want to get to know him."
Thursday in Anaheim, Wakaya will be listening and watching. Wilson's especially excited about the Olympic trials because Makare and Wakaya will be there with him, along with his parents and sister Amy. He plans to compete in all six events; he has been doing routines for only four weeks.
The other day, it was Makare who told Wilson the words he needed to hear: "You've matured so much since the last Olympics. You've done a great job of putting life in its proper perspective. Regardless of what happens, this is still the best comeback story ever."
Wilson meets personal, career challenges
By Jill Lieber, USA TODAY
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gymnast Blaine Wilson kneels in the Guardian Angel section of Resurrection Cemetery to brush the wilted honey locust leaves off the granite gravestone of his first child, Thade.
Olympic hopeful Blaine Wilson during a workout at Ohio State University last month.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
Wilson, a five-time U.S. champion and two-time Olympian, visits this burial site, located just a mile from his house, several times a month to speak to his little boy, lost shortly before birth in September 2001.
Wilson reaches to touch a branch in the biggest tree, where his mother, Joan, has hung three wind chimes — an angel, a lighthouse and a sun. Their gentle melodies, floating through the June air, he says, are Thade talking back to him. "He's watching over me," Wilson says. "He's my guardian angel."
Empowered by the wisdom he draws from his little boy and the love of his wife, Makare, and their 20-month-old daughter, Wakaya, Wilson begins his quest for his third, and final, Olympic team Thursday at the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials in Anaheim, Calif.
If Wilson is successful in his bid, he would become one of the oldest U.S. gymnasts to make an Olympic team. He turns 30 on Aug. 3, the day before the team leaves for Athens, and he would be one of the most talked about comeback stories of the 2004 Games because of the challenges he has faced the last four years.
"It's my last hurrah," Wilson says. "It's my team. I don't care about anybody else but the six guys on the team. I think we can win the gold."
Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Wilson was nicknamed "the wild child of gymnastics," thanks to his cocky, Hell's Angels approach to a conservative, pretty-boy sport. Multiple tattoos. Numerous body piercings. A passion for motorcycles, bungee jumping and sky diving. And the compulsion to shoot from the lip.
Heading into Athens, however, Wilson is looked upon as the sport's mortal, ancient warrior. Battered by the USA's disappointing fifth-place finishes at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. Torn apart by the death of his unborn son. Beaten down by injuries, including surgeries to reconstruct his right shoulder (June 2001) and reattach his left biceps tendon (March 2).
"His heart and his determination to compete at the Olympic level, that's what makes him such a great gymnast," says Miles Avery, Ohio State gymnastics coach. "He's one of the best in the world at floor, vault, rings and parallel bars, but it's his leadership that separates him from everybody else. The guys look to him as their leader; they voted him captain of the 2000 Olympic and 2003 world teams."
Making this Olympic team, Wilson's family and close friends say, would have a healing effect.
"My motto for Blaine has been: 'You need a medal to go on with your life,' " says Sheryl Shade, his agent. "This time around, it is all to prove something."
Wilson's father Bill, who started him in gymnastics at the age of 3, says, "All he has ever wanted was an Olympic team medal. It would fulfill him."
'Two peas in a pod'
The changes in Wilson began in the late 1990s, when he met his fiery match in volleyball player Makare Desilets, a native of Fiji and a University of Washington graduate, who also was training in Colorado Springs.
It didn't matter that she towered over him: She stands 6-2 and weighs 162 pounds; he is 5-4, 135.
"We're two peas in a pod," Wilson says. "We're not afraid to speak our minds. She likes to deal openly; I like to scream. We're both very stubborn."
He refers to Makare as his soul mate, and his parents say they complete each other.
They were engaged in August 2000, hours after Wilson won the all-around competition at the U.S. Olympic trials in Boston. Makare, who had failed to make the 2000 U.S. Olympic volleyball team, immediately left for Europe to play in a pro league. Wilson, meanwhile, headed to Sydney, where he struggled, partly because his injured right shoulder was pumped so full of cortisone, partly because he missed Makare so much.
"She's my best friend," says Wilson, who finished sixth in the all-around. "I can talk to her about anything. She calms me down. She softens all of my rough edges."
When she announced she was pregnant, they canceled their plans for a big wedding and were married by a justice of the peace in March 2001.
"This was the son he always wanted, the boy who would be 6 feet tall and do all of the sports he never could," Shade says. "So many hopes, so many dreams. It was all he could talk about."
Sept. 10, two days before her due date, Makare awoke at 6 a.m. with sharp abdominal pains. Because she already had experienced false labor, doctors told her not to come to the hospital until she was closer to delivering.
"I asked her if the baby was still moving, but she never answered because she was in so much pain," Wilson recalls.
When they arrived four hours later at the Ohio State University Medical Center, doctors couldn't find a heartbeat. An ultrasound confirmed the worst.
"We were in shock," Makare says. "One moment, we were excited about starting our family; the next, our baby boy is gone."
A blood clot had formed, and the placenta pulled away from the uterus, causing fetal death. Doctors said it was an accident, occurring in one in 10,000 full-term pregnancies.
Then doctors told the Wilsons Makare would have to deliver her son.
"I didn't think it was possible," she says. "I wanted to die, too. Blaine was so good to me. He consoled me. We cried on and off all day. We didn't know what else to do."
Ten hours, and three epidurals, later, Makare delivered Thade Tawake Joseph Wilson.
"He looked absolutely perfect," Wilson's mother, Joan, says.
Neither Wilson nor his wife had wanted to hold their child, but they changed their minds as soon as they laid eyes on him. They cuddled him, took pictures, had him blessed by a priest, then kissed him goodbye. "We would have always regretted it if we hadn't held him," he says.
Trying to cope
A few hours later, the Wilsons checked out of the hospital, and the following morning, they awoke to the horrors of Sept. 11.
"Intense, back-to-back grief," he says. "I thought, 'What the hell is going on?' '
Shade says: "They got swallowed up in 9/11, and everybody else's grief. It allowed them to distance themselves from Thade's death — in less than 24 hours."
A week later, Wilson, who was recovering from right rotator cuff surgery, returned to the Ohio State gym and began running on the treadmill for hours at a time. Makare soon went to Chicago to resume her pro volleyball career. "Working out was the only way to express my misery," he says.
Two months later, Wilson phoned Shade and announced he was going to Athens. But it was months more before he could voice his grief.
"Makare was very open about it. She cried quite a bit, but I didn't cry as much as I should have," he says. "She blamed herself. Because she'd played volleyball during the first months of the pregnancy, she thought she'd caused his death.
"I, on the other hand, was just so angry. We were two healthy parents. Why had God let this happen?"
In early 2002, Makare announced she was pregnant again. This time, Wilson tempered his enthusiasm. He made excuses not to go to her doctor's appointments.
"He didn't want to get connected to something else he could lose down the road," she says.
Of course, the moment he saw Wakaya, he was smitten. She is named for a Fijian island. Her pictures are everywhere in Wilson's house. On the refrigerator. On the computer screen saver. On one entire wall of the living room.
Joan says that Wakaya looks exactly like Thade.
"Without the loss of one child, we wouldn't have another," Wilson says. "She's a precious gift."
Separation anxiety
Unfortunately, Wakaya has been Wilson's biggest sacrifice on his road to Athens. In January, Makare moved to Manhattan Beach, Calif., to compete on the pro beach volleyball circuit. She and partner Tyra Harper are ranked 11th. Wakaya lives with Makare's mother, Meriosi, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wilson has seen his wife and daughter twice in the past 6 1/2 months — Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
Being alone in the three-bedroom house (except for bulldog Kyla) was especially difficult this spring, after his biceps tendon surgery. He worked out four times a day, then hit 100 golf balls into a net in the nursery each night.
"The first thing that came to my mind when I got hurt was, 'This is our best shot, and this is my last Olympics,' " Wilson says. "I was furious. Now I was on a deadline to make my final dream come true."
Since March, Wilson has been pulled to the cemetery often, bringing flowers, balloons and teddy bears, taking comfort in the wind chimes. He would phone Wakaya and say, "Daddy's got a boo-boo." And she would just giggle. But he would confide in Thade as an adult, telling him, "I've hit a rough spot, but things will be all right." Then the melodies magically would begin bubbling through the air.
"I have no problem talking to Thade because he always listens to me," he says. Recently, he asked his mother, "When I die and go to heaven and meet Thade, will he be little? Or will he be my age? Because I want to get to know him."
Thursday in Anaheim, Wakaya will be listening and watching. Wilson's especially excited about the Olympic trials because Makare and Wakaya will be there with him, along with his parents and sister Amy. He plans to compete in all six events; he has been doing routines for only four weeks.
The other day, it was Makare who told Wilson the words he needed to hear: "You've matured so much since the last Olympics. You've done a great job of putting life in its proper perspective. Regardless of what happens, this is still the best comeback story ever."
