by Mary Pilon
Figuring that it must be time for the racing part of The Show to begin, Kevin headed toward the competition’s start, his perspective still a swirling panorama.
MORGAN
When Kevin was late for race prep, Morgan knew immediately that something was amiss.179 When Kevin was on, he was punctual, organized, and completely ready for competition. His reliability and consistency were part of what had made them the team to beat heading into Sydney and as Morgan rigged up the boat, he recognized how out of character this was for Kevin.
Ready to hit the water, but waiting, Morgan remembered Kevin, and maybe his parents, too, mentioning at some point that he had had some form of bipolar disorder. They had given him advice on how to help if anything should happen, but Morgan hadn’t really thought that it would ever come up.
Finally, Kevin strolled up to Morgan and the boat, dressed in street, not sailing, clothes, save for a life jacket. He was smoking a cigarette, talking in nonsensical loops between puffs.
The minute Morgan saw Kevin, he knew that the two of them were not going to race that day. “He was totally dysfunctional,” he said.
Morgan tried to broach the subject of Kevin’s getting some help, but Kevin immediately flipped out, and within seconds he was off. Morgan sprinted after him for a while, but then gave up. The race was a bust, and Morgan’s teammate and best shot at making it to the Olympics was manic and missing.
GORDON
It took some time for Gordon to piece it together, but eventually, he learned that after leaving Morgan, Kevin climbed behind the wheel of his grandfather’s canary yellow Cadillac and had driven it onto the grass median of a road. The move had felt perfect, he later told his father. He had done some kind of power slide,180 causing the car to land sideways and completely on the median, perpendicular to the road.
Kevin opened the driver’s side door and exited, miraculously uninjured. He wandered away and was about four blocks from the site of the abandoned car when the cops saw him. Kevin explained to them that the car’s position was intended to straddle the “doorway” to the other side.
The cops pinned Kevin to the ground. This was far from the first time that law enforcement had made an appearance on The Show, but this was the first time they had physically pushed him down.181 It pulled him out of The Show somewhat and back to Long Beach. But by then, it was clearly too little too late.
Kevin again found himself in police custody and then transferred to a hospital. It was a handoff with which he and his family were becoming familiar, but to which they were still not accustomed.
Gordon wasn’t one to nag Kevin182 about his appearance, but as he once again received the news about his son being taken into police custody, then handed over to mental health experts, he felt that it must have helped his son that he had kept his hair cut short and his clothes clean, that he had no tattoos or scars and didn’t reek of alcohol or marijuana or any other illegal substance.
Gordon renewed his ongoing argument with Kevin about his medication. Kevin tried to explain to him that the downers really brought him down, not just from the mania, but to the darkest corners of his mind. This aroused little sympathy from Gordon,183 as he reasoned that at least depressed people didn’t usually come to the attention of the cops, and that even if Kevin was depressed, at least he was less likely to cause the kind of trouble that he did when manic. It was the lesser of two evils in Gordon’s eyes, but to Kevin, that still meant there was an unbearable evil.
For his father, Kevin’s track record of going off his meds spoke for itself. Sure, he might feel better for a while, but it was only a matter of time before his mania mushroomed again, requiring hospitalization and causing trauma for himself and those around him. Gordon’s own life had flourished in routine and he observed that Kevin’s seemed to also be at its best when he was stable. He won titles, landed good grades, and he wasn’t a burden for those around him.
It was simple, Gordon thought. Take the pills.
MORGAN
Morgan forgave Kevin for what happened, knowing that it was the illness doing its work, not any intentional attempt on Kevin’s part to sabotage their sailing goals. Kevin seemed surprised by his kindness, but Morgan was on Kevin’s team—literally—and felt it was best to move forward. Kevin was the best sailing partner he had ever worked with, the left brain to Morgan’s right, and that balance was more than worth the risk. (Although, once Kevin crossed over to The Show, the opposite dynamic took hold.)
They still had time to make it to the Olympic trials for the 2000 Sydney Games.
•
To prepare for the November 1999 trials, Kevin and Morgan based themselves in St. Petersburg, Florida, and partnered with Zachary Leonard, Kevin’s friend who had helped coach him at Brown, who would help prepare them for trials. Aside from being a friend, Zach, only four years older than Kevin, had gained experience working with several Olympians.184 Zach deeply understood the complexities of, and sharp differences between, collegiate sailing and Olympic sailing: in Olympic sailing, a single race could last for hours instead of a few minutes, athleticism and speed were premiums over tactics, because sailors could be out in the open ocean. Strangely, youth sailing was more like its Olympic counterpart than collegiate sailing because of its rules, classifications, and structure, and Zach knew that some people were good at one and not the other. Kevin had been the best youth sailor in the world, as well as part of an NCAA championship team, making him a serious threat on the water at trials and beyond.
Knowing that drinking alcohol could interfere with his bipolar disorder and testosterone levels, Kevin completely abstained. Preparing for the trials gave him a perfect excuse without having to go into the details of his medical history or medication regime. Surprisingly, many would-be Olympians say that the trials to make the American team can feel more stressful than the Olympics themselves. If you don’t make the team, you can’t even call yourself an Olympian, and what’s worse, if you fail to make the team you have to sit through weeks of relentless media coverage of the event that has been the sole focus of all your energy and work for four years. A competitor who overestimates how prepared he or she is for the trials risks not being ready for an unexpected new entrant who can cause an upset. If a competitor overprepares, there’s a risk of burnout, physical and psychological.
The lead went back and forth between Kevin and Morgan and their opponents, but ultimately, they finished in second place. For a third time, Kevin had failed to make an Olympic team, this time just barely.
•
As far as consolation prizes for not qualifying for the Olympics go, making an America’s Cup team sounded like a pretty good deal to Kevin and Morgan. They accepted an invitation to join the AmericaOne team185 and headed to Auckland.
In becoming part of an America’s Cup team, Kevin became part of one of sport’s deepest lineages. From its genesis, the America’s Cup was fueled by those with wealth, power, and ego, starting in the summer of 1851, when the industrialist John Cox Stevens built a yacht called America and successfully raced it against British counterparts. Stevens and his co-owners received a silver cup for their victory. Fueled by nationalistic zeal, Stevens returned to the United States a hero and presented his silver cup to the New York Yacht Club with the proviso that it represent a challenge for a recurring international competition.
A top professional sailor competing in the America’s Cup could earn an annual income of upper five to mid-six figures, plus bonuses for Cups won. Additionally, some had side gigs as professional sailors for hire, as many wealthy amateurs enjoyed the bragging rights and experience that came from being taught by an America’s Cup athlete.
The dynamics of America’s Cup sailing are vastly different from those of Olympic-level or collegiate sailing, almost to the degree that marathon running and sprinting have little in common beyond the intensive use of the legs. In Olympic sailing, the technology element is minimized as much as possible, with sailors competing in boats that are virtually identica
l. In the America’s Cup, the course, the boat, and the rules of play are subject to change every cycle, which would be like the winner of the Super Bowl getting to redraw the lines and dimensions of the football field and redesigning the pigskin each year to better suit their own team’s strengths. Engineering is of foremost importance, and among the teams there is a perpetual arms race of dollars and design to create the fastest boat. Additionally, the boats must be designed according to certain rules; as one sailing tome put it, they must be similar enough to create the feeling of a level, competitive playing field, but different enough to make the races interesting and suspenseful.
For the competition, AmericaOne constructed two boats, their designs based on the latest technology and research, in partnership with companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Ford. Everything and everyone was excited about August 2001, when the 150th anniversary of the Cup would take place in Cowes, a small English seaport town of nine thousand that more than doubles in population during significant sailing events.
Everyone’s task on the AmericaOne boats was clear: The bowmen at the front, strong and acrobatic, were responsible for changing sails. The midbowmen worked with the pit crew during sail changes, and the pitman coordinated the front part of the boat. Trimmers worked with the skipper to determine if the boat was generating as much speed as it needed, and the skipper was in charge of making tactical decisions. Many of the guys onboard had suggested that Kevin take on the role of navigator, the person in charge of the onboard computers and data, and of communicating that information to the skipper, strategist, and helmsman. The navigator’s task was to decipher not only complex computations but also the feel of the wind, and know how much of which to believe in a given moment. It was the perfect marriage of Kevin’s left and right brain. But such a role for a rookie in the event would have been a big call for the top brass with AmericaOne, so Kevin was assigned a coaching and spy role.
Spying is as old, and accepted, in the event as the America’s Cup itself, a race ripe with gossip. Information, and dis-information, about the construction of America’s Cup boats, in particular, was prized. (The word “scuttlebutt” is nautical in its origin, “scuttle” referring to a water cask for drinking and “butt” meaning barrel. Sailors gathered around the “scuttlebutt” to exchange information, a precursor to the modern workplace water cooler.186) The America’s Cup had rules for the boats’ design, including the size of the “envelope,” or the maximum dimensions of the boat. But how one’s opponents were working within or around those confines was of paramount interest, with millions of dollars and international titles at stake.
Because sailors switched between being competitors and being allies so often, it wasn’t uncommon for an athlete to know a lot about his enemy, or to seek out information about who could be making what kind of move to a different team. No one was more aware of this than Kevin. He was a quick study when it came to scouting out the enemy boats, lurking near docks, snapping photographs, and then reporting back to the AmericaOne designers, all in the name of having a competitive edge.
KEVIN
In some regards, the rigid structure of life with AmericaOne, like many America’s Cup teams, felt paternal. The team had a logistics operator187 who handled everything but sailing: where the team ate, lodged, spent its time, dressed, traveled, and so on, in effect managing the entire team’s schedule from five in the morning to eight at night. AmericaOne’s coordinator was Sarah O’Kane, a youthful British woman who became something of a den mother to the sailors, a liaison between the insularity of the military-like sport and the life some of them tried to lead outside of it.
As in Olympic sailing, weight mattered in the America’s Cup; however, the body image issues in elite sailing are seldom, if ever, discussed. The America’s Cup boats had individual and group weight targets depending on what role the sailors had on the boat. Grinders, the sailors who were the human engines of the boat, were expected to weigh more than people who had less physical roles. All of the sailors carefully watched what they and the others were eating, and there were playful photos of teammates caught eating ice cream, as every pound, as well as where it sat, was part of the team strategy. Yet unlike, say, cheerleading, where everyone is trying to be thin, group weight targets made for a sort of strange prisoner’s dilemma among the athletes. One sailor being heavier necessarily meant another person would have to be just that much lighter, as the object was having a perfectly balanced combined weight.
When Kevin first joined the team, Sarah O’Kane, the go-to for all internal team crises, knew nothing of his mental health history.188 As for Morgan, the memory of the Long Beach episode had stuck with him, but he observed that Kevin seemed to be adjusting to his new surroundings well, both on and off the water. It seemed to no one’s advantage to bring it up, particularly when Kevin, by outward appearances, had moved on.189
A new era in sailing was beginning, one in which the boats were being backed by more corporate sponsorship money than ever before. While some traditionalists may have decried the shift, it was good news for sailors like Kevin and Morgan, who could now actually earn a living by being on a boat.190 The growing influence of technology and math in sailing played to Kevin’s strengths, too, as he forged out a path in the niche of navigation. A natural longtime lover of math and tinkering, Kevin joked that he had landed the technical duties because he was “one of the few guys on the team who didn’t mind restarting Windows twice.”191
MORGAN
One day, when Morgan returned home to the apartment he shared with Kevin in Auckland, he could see that Kevin had made some odd, artistic decorating decisions, including rearranging the furniture in an unconventional pattern. Over the last couple of days, Kevin had also been coming and going at odd hours, inconsistent with the team’s rigid schedule. Then, there was the morning when Morgan had woken up to find Kevin frying eggs on the stove with sugar, then leaving the concoction on the hot burner and going to sleep.
Morgan went to Sarah and said that they had a problem. He told her what he knew of Kevin’s history with bipolar disorder and described what he had seen in the last twenty-four hours, and what he hadn’t seen—Kevin.
Sarah, the daughter of a doctor and by now a veteran of handling the mechanics and inherent drama percolating underneath an America’s Cup team, was not particularly alarmed by the news, having been exposed to some psychiatric disorders over the years. In fact, she had wondered privately whether there was some kind of connection between mental illness and sailing; many of the men she worked with were extremely technically adept but struggled with basic social skills, anxiety, and general mood management. Then again, the high-pressure lifestyle wasn’t exactly always conducive to mental well-being, either. She appreciated Morgan’s concern, and she also knew, from what he had told her, that Kevin was not himself.192
She and Morgan hopped into a van. They had to find Kevin.
•
At first Morgan couldn’t believe it was his friend and teammate. But then he knew it had to be. Kevin was dancing along the streets of Auckland and seemed enraptured, a smile beaming off his face, his body swaying with the effortlessness of Fred Astaire. Morgan and Sarah approached him in the van with extra-friendly smiles. They played dumb, chatting Kevin up, and eventually succeeded in getting him into the van under the pretext that they were going to go grab a drink together.
Instead, Sarah and Morgan brought him back to the AmericaOne residence, and Sarah quickly called her father to ask him what she should do. This was her first experience with someone having a full-blown manic episode, and while Kevin seemed to be calming down a bit, she wasn’t sure how long the lull would last. Morgan called in a couple of teammates to hang out with them, not wanting Kevin to suspect that they were waiting for a doctor to arrive to give a psychiatric evaluation. Sitting on the eighth floor, Morgan was worried that Kevin might try to jump out the window. With their other teammates standing in his way, Morgan thought, he might reconsider.193
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The doctor arrived soon after they called, but it had felt like a century, time having its way of stretching out when the mind feels anxious or stressed. As Sarah and Morgan had predicted, he deemed Kevin to be in a deep manic state and best handled at a psychiatric ward.
To their surprise, Kevin agreed to be taken out of the room and into the doctor’s care. Sarah went with him.
At the doctor’s office, Kevin asked Sarah, with complete sincerity, whether she was having fun yet or not. He clearly had no handle on how his episode could have cost him his career on the boat; it would be Sarah’s lobbying that would allow him to keep his spot, though he would spend most of his time on shore as a spy.
AMANDA
The plan had been for Amanda to get a break from school and for her and Kevin to meet up and go to Vermont and hike—a romantic New England date, somewhat evocative of their first few months together as students in Providence. The weather, however, had different plans. Rain poured down, rendering many of the trails muddy slip ’n slides.
Kevin and Amanda watched the canvas of gray skies from the window of a Motel 6 not far from the hiking trail. The ill weather gave rise to a conversation about deeper things, including marriage, fueled by champagne sipped out of Styrofoam cups. They talked about their mutual desire to spend the rest of their lives together and create a family.
Amanda, tipsy, asked if Kevin would marry her.
Then, she passed out.
Kevin looked around the room, realizing that they were indeed the only two people there, so she was asking him, not someone else. He was dumbfounded and secretly glad for the mental break to try and process it all.
When she came to, they discussed it and, with a Styrofoam toast, considered their engagement official.194
