Volleyball team deals with tragedy

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Beijing -- For four years, they had looked forward to this day. Four years of practice and work and dreams. Four years inspired by the glory days of the 1980s, when American men's volleyball ruled the Olympic Games.Their ranking had climbed to No. 3 in the world, behind Brazil and Russia. Barely two weeks ago, they won the International Volleyball Federation's World League for the first time. They were ready."We were playing pretty good volleyball," said assistant coach Ron Larsen.Saturday, on the eve of their first Olympic match, they convened at Beijing Normal University. About 30 minutes in, head coach Hugh McCutcheon was summoned to the phone."We were in the middle of practice," 36-year-old veteran Lloy (cq) Ball recounted Sunday. "We saw him leave. But in the Olympics, it could be anything. It could be to talk to (reporters), it could be a problem with tickets and logistics of practices. We didn't know."So it wasn't until after we got our therapy, when we had our meetings and we saw a lot of people show up, that we knew something was wrong. We haven't seen him since he left the room."McCutcheon's wife, 2004 Olympic volleyball player Liz Bachman McCutcheon, known within the USA Volleyball family as "Wiz," had been out with her parents, Todd and Barbara Bachman, visiting Beijing's 13th century Drum Tower, a popular tourist site. A stranger had attacked Bachman with a knife. His wife came to his aid and the assailant turned on her.Todd Bachman was dead. Barbara Bachman was in surgery. Liz Bachman McCutcheon had escaped physical injury. In a country where citizens are not allowed to own guns, where the authoritarian state provides plenty of disincentives to breaking the law, they were victims of an apparently random, inexplicable act of violence.With a daughter who had played on the women's team and a son-in-law who coached the men, the Bachmans were fixtures at USA Volleyball events. "They were the biggest fans we had," women's team member Logan Tom said.For the men, the emotional shock was not the only problem. They were about to start the Olympic tournament without their coach. Hugh McCutcheon had gone to be with his family. No one knew when he would be back.Saturday night, he found time to call. His players gathered around a speaker phone."He's the guy who's been steering, leading our squad through these last four years," said 35-year-old team captain Thomas Hoff. "I know the guys - it meant an awful lot to us when we heard from him. He talked about trying to move on. Each of us has to try to move on in our own way."For these Olympians, who came from all over the country to train together in Colorado Springs, conflicting emotions roiled."Our knee-jerk reactions were like any other human being's - we were angry, we were upset," Ball said. "We wanted to talk to our friends and family who are here and back home. We met as a team. As a male sport, we tend to hide our feelings a lot. But there was definitely a moment where guys let off how they felt about the situation, how they felt about Hugh not being on the bench.""He makes all the decisions," said Riley Salmon, 32. "As soon as the rubber meets the road, he has to make a decision."In his place was the soft-spoken Larsen, McCutcheon's veteran first assistant."I'd much rather be sitting on the bench, telling him what I think he should be doing and having him saying, 'I don't think so,' rather than where I am right now," Larsen said.Instead, he was on his feet along the sideline as the U.S. men took on Venezuela in their opening match Sunday."We talked about it before the game," said Ryan Millar, 30. "We wanted to do something with our jerseys, but we didn't have time. So we put Wiz's mom's initials and dad's initials on the back of our shoes and just talked about huddling up together, taking a couple of moments to let him know that we're thinking about him."Gathered in a circle before the match, the players bowed their heads in a moment of silence."That was spontaneous," Larsen said. "That was completely their idea."For two sets, they dominated the Venezuelans. Then they seemed to lose focus, dropping the third and fourth sets before coming back to win the fifth and take the match. Their faces afterward betrayed a mix of relief and sadness, determination and worry.China's official Xinhua News Agency identified the Bachmans' assailant as Tang Yongming, 47, a Chinese national. It said he leaped to his death from a balcony on the Drum Tower shortly after the attack. The U.S. Olympic Committee said Barbara Bachman was in critical but stable condition after eight hours of surgery."It's been very emotional for us the last 24 hours, obviously," said Hoff, the team captain. "We're playing a volleyball game out there - nothing in comparison to the loss that happened to our team, USA Volleyball, our whole delegation. Obviously, we all came here to do this, and it's very hard to continue on."To feel that feeling of helplessness, we just kind of talked and thought the best thing we can do is go out and play volleyball."Their next match is scheduled for Tuesday, against Italy. Whether their coach will be back is anybody's guess. A man is dead, a woman fights for her life and an Olympic team tries to make sense of the senseless.Kriegerd(at)RockyMountainNews.com