Speed of Light

Now it was time for Doug to turn professional. He played in a few pro events while studying business at North Carolina State, then decided to move back to Texas, where there are more tournaments and some of the best racquetball in the country is played. He bounced from Austin to Dallas. He made steady progress in the sport, which is only financially lucrative for the very best players. The nation's number one player, for example, can easily make a few hundred thousand dollars a year. The number ten player makes maybe 40 grand, if he hustles his butt off.

Doug climbed steadily up the rankings, helped by Drew Kachtik, a buddy, coach and mentor who was dominating the national rankings at the time. Doug's confidence grew along with his strength and ability. He plunged into the brotherhood that is the racquetball circuit, building relationships that would soon allow him to land at any airport in the country, call up a friend, and bunk there for a month. He enjoyed massive amounts of sex. Always a music fan, he amassed CDs by the thousands. He lived life to the fullest and for the moment.

Until the moment that Lincoln Town Car careened into the picture.

Fresh out of the operating room, Doug felt an unfamiliar emotion. He was scared. Of life without racquetball. Of life with pain. Of change.

Doug had always been happy, or been what he thought was happy. Now he was being forced to look someplace new for solutions to the toughest challenge he had ever faced. Why had this calamity befallen him? He was raised Greek Orthodox, even served as an altar boy for a while, but had never bought into the ritualistic fervor of Catholicism. After 21 years of taking all of his gifts for granted, he felt pretty sure there was a God. How he was going to reach this entity was another question.

Lying in that bed, Doug made a conscious choice. He would not quit, would not give in to the fear. He would move away from darkness and anger and toward light. There was a light, of that he was sure. The problem was how to reach it.

Like any athlete, Doug found a certain measure of salvation through physical rehabilitation. Six months of inactivity had sent his weight ballooning to 210 pounds, up from 185 on his 6-foot-1 frame. The surgeons' knives had turned his taut abdomen to dough. Lack of exercise had atrophied his explosive muscles. He began with stomach exercises and stretching sessions. Sunrise would find him swimming laps at the pool. He ran through parks, doing push-ups on the grass and pull-ups on whatever would hold him. As he regained strength, he progressed to weights.

But this type of exercise was all stuff he had done before. He decided to rebuild himself from the inside out. Losing everything gave Doug a humility that was once beyond the comprehension of a cocky, top-level athlete. He realized there had to be other forces at work to explain his talent as well as his troubles. So every night he would come home, lock the doors to his house, and look inside himself. Ever the experimenter, he sampled philosophies of Eastern thought, meditation, the teachings of spiritual types from Ram Das to Jesus to Buddha, a substance or two. He listened to a lot of music, letting the sounds take his mind above and beyond.

"Just knocking it open, moving the walls back," Doug describes these solitary sessions. "And it kept getting bigger. As you know yourself more, you become more realized as to who you are: a perfect child of God. You realize that there are two forces governing everything: love and fear. You're either moving toward love or running from fear."

Doug didn't mention it to anyone, but he set a date for his return to the court for mid-1996. As the day neared, his weightlifting became more intense. The lower back is the locus of power for a racquetball player's vicious swing, and Doug didn't want to take one good swipe and end up back in the hospital. He made a few tentative trips to the court by himself, hitting for a few minutes and then retreating. Finally, two and half years after his surgery, Doug asked his friend Kachtik to hit with him.

"It was like a veil was lifted," Doug remembers. "[The accident] was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I didn't realize the gifts I had. Everything is a gift; you have to recognize you have it. My natural athletic ability, my family and the support I had there, my friendships. My eye-hand coordination, I always thought I had it just because I do. There was never any thought to give thanks, of any gratefulness.

"My timing was off, my cardio was off, but I felt awesome. It was huge. It was my life. I was back."

Doug's renovation continued apace, inside and out. A year after his return to the court, he won the Texas state championship in the open division. A lot of players compete both in the open and pro divisions, and Doug was beating guys at the pro level. He started playing the pro tour and picked up a few sponsors, including a multi-year deal with the equipment manufacturer Head that provided a nice stipend and as much free gear as he asked for -- racquets, shoes, clothing, luggage, whatever. Free of financial pressure, he ascended the U.S. rankings, reaching as high as number 11.