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Outside Magazine February 2002

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End of the Run (Cont.)


	Johnson today, facing an uncertain future: "He will improve," says his physician, "but not drastically."

Mark Herhusky flew to Montana immediately after the accident. He sat in Johnson's hospital room for five days, reading fan letters out loud. Other friends played Led Zeppelin and Stevie Ray Vaughn tapes, in hopes that the familiar tunes would jolt something deep in his memory. They stayed with him overnight, listening for a conscious moan, waiting for him to open his eyes. A guy who washed dishes with Johnson more than two decades ago recently launched the Bill Johnson Foundation, which has raised $6,000 toward Johnson's future living expenses. Clearly, the best thing that has happened in the wake of Johnson's crash is the great outpouring of support he's gotten from friends, from what former pro downhiller John Creel calls "the ski-racing brotherhood." Creel, 45, is a firefighter who raced against Johnson in the seventies. Like Johnson, he is friendly and boisterous, with a testosterone-heavy résumé. He's a waterfall kayaker and was the first person to ski the crater of Mount St. Helens after it erupted in 1980. He entered Bill Johnson's story in the summer of 2000, when Johnson showed up at Creel's fire station, looking for someone to coach him through his comeback attempt.

"He walked in with an ice cream cone and ice cream dripping down his shirt, and he said he wanted my help," Creel remembers. "We weren't close friends. It wasn't like we'd chased chicks together, but he was part of the brotherhood. I told him, 'Follow me home. We start training tomorrow.'"

Creel still styles himself as Johnson's coach. Though he acknowledges Dr. Hoeflich's assessment—that it's extremely unlikely Johnson will ski at a top level again—he's reluctant to let go of the notion that he's orchestrating an Olympic comeback. All last fall, as Johnson struggled with ordinary tasks, Creel shepherded him through a training regimen he described as "riding the edge." It consisted largely of drinking beer, with a little golf and fishing thrown in. In late November, Johnson officially returned to the slopes with some mild runs at Mount Hood. The primary training camp was Creel's house in Maupin, Oregon, a tiny desert town on the Deschutes River, 100 miles east of Portland. One morning Johnson and I decided to head out there with fishing poles. He wore a special T-shirt for the occasion. It read: "Goin' Richter."

We went with Petr Kakes, a Czech national who placed sixth in speed skiing (that is, shooting straight down a steep slope) at the 1992 Winter Olympics. Kakes drove at least 75 the whole way, and we pulled some serious g's on the winding turns of Route 26.

I asked Johnson if he liked driving fast. "It's more of a thrill to shoot a gun," he said. "I used to shoot birds that go in the ocean—any kind of birds that ate fish. I used to shoot them for themselves."

We arrived at Creel's around noon, and right away he forked Johnson a cold beer.

"His mom said only one an hour," Creel said, smirking.

"That's history now," Kakes said.

We walked over to the Rainbow Tavern to get some sandwiches and ran into Gary Odam, a retired sheet-metal worker who'd met Johnson a couple of times the summer before. Odam insisted on buying Johnson a beer. "What this guy's been through," he said, "I should buy him a jug of whiskey." He turned to Johnson. "You were fucked up, man. But you came through. You got a lot of guts, man."

"I do got a lot of guts, man," Johnson said. It was impossible to tell whether the comment was a wry quip or just vacant mimicry. But it carried a glint of the old cocky Johnson, and Odam loved it.

"Let me buy you another one," he said. "I can't think of anything that'd be more of an honor to me. What you did at the Olympics, it was phenomenal! Man, that was like those guys landing on the moon or something! All the bars and taverns in Portland were full, and everyone was ecstatic. I mean, people were going fucking crazy that night. Crazy!"

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