Part 4
The Navajo legend presents Changing Bear Maiden as a demonic she-bear. Originally a human maiden, she weds a coyote, which her twelve brothers kill. In retaliation, she takes on the form of a bear and slays eleven of her siblings. Her youngest brother manages to shoot her with an arrow; he divides her body and the various parts transform into pine nuts, yucca fruit, and cacti. Her evil is defeated, yielding positive results for the earth and providing nourishment for the Navajo people.
— From Amy Sillup, Suite101.com
From: Rob Carrigan
To: Carl Rice
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004
Coach:
What did he like and dislike?
What did he love and value?
I would say he was a planner who usually had laser beam focus. He set his goals early and often. As a result, he usually had a pretty good success ratio, and the façade of at least appearing calm. In retrospect, his public persona was one of a person way beyond his years. It was as if he knew his ticket was punched for the matinee only.
He respected you a great deal. That’s the reason for his search for approval from you specifically. You were a different animal than he had seen before. He recognized that early and saw you as one that he could respect. His folks are by no means bad people, but he seemed to recognize the limitations of such an existence — and want more.
You also provided an outlet for his talent and interest in development of strategy, particularly sport strategy.
What did accept less of?
In what way was he fragile?
And finally, though it is off the beam, but I’m curious, how do you see the rest of us?
__ Rob
Carl Rice wrote:
I would say you are very accurate. He was a loving son who was ashamed that he had to scrape. He hated the things that people thought and said about him and his family yet he saw the weakness. He loved his Grandmother and grandfather yet he was jealous of their attention for Scott. He was his own worst enemy because he acted like he needed nothing but he needed support so much that he felt guilty. You guys think he was different than you. I don’t see him that way. He just didn’t ask as much.
You ask what I think about you guys and I almost gasped because I have never articulated that to you. I have worried what you thought of me. I guess that is selfish. You guys were like characters in a Shakespearian epic. You each have allegorical presence to me. Each good and bad, comical and tragic, selfish and understanding etc…
I learned more from teaching and coaching you guys than I had even suspected in the first 24 years of my life. It is impossible to do what Lynn and I have done without adopting the personalities that you are responsible for. I think of all of you almost daily and pray that your lives are full and plentiful.
I think this writing is good but want to examine your motives first hand. You always represented the thinking general type, the overachiever. I talk about you to every team I coach and every clinic I speak at. The conversation is not about football, it is about courage and belief in yourself. It is about what you can do if you don’t consider failure as an option. You personally mean much more than that to me. Have you ever thought about the symbiotic balance that you guys had? Have you ever wondered how it happened? What it represented in your life? And if it would ever happen again? Coach
From: Rob Carrigan
To: Carl Rice
Sent: Monday, Jan. 19, 2004
Coach:
I always have been a persistent little troll. Everyone wants to know what others think…
The team we are talking about offered an unprecedented honesty that I saw neither before, nor after that particular time in my life. If I was an ass, I was usually told about then and there, and the same was true for others.
Balance was a good way to describe it. We kept one or the other of us from tipping the scales too far. The dynamic with you was a little different in that you were the adult-in-charge and beside that, could have easily stomped a mud hole in us — but not that different.
In many respects, you offered us an equality that most adults never offered us before. In my own wistful reminiscence of that time and space, I miss the honesty the most. Sometimes you need people to tell you when they think you are screwing up. But as I get older, I either quit listening or most folks just quit telling, or both.
I can’t believe I’ve completely quit making mistakes. (Neither can my wife and kids.) My own honest evaluation of you is very positive. You are a good guy that cared about us. You noted our successes, you told us when we screwed up. You even allowed us to see some of the chinks in your own armor. But you also challenged us to create our own legends. You asked us to ask more of ourselves and to consider the possibilities. Thank you.
Back to Lynn: I don’t see him as that different, except for what I call “the faraway eyes.” I can’t help thinking that some of the things he did, the way he did them, he did because he could hear a clock ticking. — Rob.
From: Carl Rice
To: Rob Carrigan
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004
I agree about the eyes and the presence. You were not a persistent little troll. Your body was not as big as your heart. That is a good thing. I will take heart anytime. Carl.
In the midst of gathering information about Lynn's life, his younger brother Lane, died of similar causes.
From the obituary pages of the Dolores Star and the Cortez Journal:
Funeral services for lifelong Cortez resident Lane Leavell will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21 at the Lifeway Baptist Church. Pastor Jimmy Kennedy will officiate. Internment will follow at Cortez Cemetery. Lane was born the son of Kay Leavell and Darlene (Sparks) Leavell on Feb. 8, 1971, in Cortez. He died at Southwest memorial Hospital on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004. He was 33. On July 10, 1993, Lane married Amy Sue Risenhoover in Dolores. A heavy equipment mechanic for Nielsons/Skanska, Lane loved his job. He was an active and devoted member of Lifeway Baptist Church, and he was a member of the Dolores Fire Department. In his free time, Lane enjoyed building model trucks. He was proud that he was the one trusted annually to haul the Galloping Goose train to Durango to put it on the tracks. Mostly, though, Lane loved his family and cherished those relationships. Surviving Lane are his beloved wife of 10 years, Amy Leavell of Dolores: his children, Garrett Leavell and Madelynn Leavell both of Dolores; his parents, Kay Leavell and Darlene Leavell of Dolores; his parents in law, Leon and Saralynn Risenhoover also of Dolores; and his grandmother, Jean Sparks of Hendersen, Nev., Three sisters, Penny Thompson and husband, Gene of Mancos, Lisa Balderrama and husband Rudy, of Cortez, and Lori Willbanks and husband, Keenan of Dolores also survive Lane. Preceding Lane in death was an infant daughter, Sarah Leavell; brother, Lynn Leavell; grandmother, Bernice Leavell; and grandfather, Paddy Leavell.
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