New outlook as good as gold

He pulls the newspaper clipping from a black wallet over ham and eggs. He found it two months ago, John Stillings says, before he turned the beginning of the ending to his rowing legacy into something more suitable for Hollywood than Snohomish County.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure," reads the quote from President Theodore Roosevelt, "than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

The Olympian knows defeat like he knows rowing, which is to say he's an expert in pouring salt into self-inflicted wounds. It took the Edmonds native and Meadowdale High School graduate nearly two decades to understand the meaning, while he steamed and seethed over a silver medal in the 1984 Olympics.

So bitter, so angry, so not over it, Stillings balked when his wife volunteered for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, snagging tickets to a handful of events. He had a golf tournament to go to. And the last thing he wanted was to watch someone else celebrate the gold medal that had eluded him with only 20 strokes to go in Los Angeles.

Betsy Beard Stillings, who won gold as a coxswain in 1984, says her husband was grouchy when they entered the speed-skating venue in Salt Lake.

They watched Apolo Ohno crash into his competitors and crawl across the line. Then they waited as someone wheeled Ohno to the medal podium. Then they listened to him, the lack of bitterness, the grace of his humility, the way he shook his opponent's hand.

"I'm standing there saying: 'He's a 19-year-old kid. And it looks like he gets it,' " John Stillings said. "I'm in my 40s. ... Maybe it's time to grow up. So I asked myself: 'What are you going to do? You've got to accept it and move on.' "

So Stillings got to thinking about a comeback. On one hand, as a coxswain who steers the boat but doesn't row, age didn't present any physical limitations. On the other, he was nearing 48 and guiding a group of kids who weren't even born when he ruled the water.

He called United States rowing coach Mike Teti, a former teammate who didn't discourage Stillings but told him they already had an Olympic-caliber coxswain coming back.

Stillings wavered again, wondering why he should even try getting back into the sport he had divorced in 1985, after a storied career at the University of Washington and a falling-out that induced a 17-year layoff.

On his son Logan's 8th birthday, Stillings asked his other son, Evan, if he should go to the tryouts.

"Dad, you should go anyway," Evan said in a way that an 11-year-old can. "I don't think you should not go just because you're afraid you won't make it."

"It was difficult for him to live with somebody who won a gold medal," Beard Stillings said. "It was hard for him to be happy with a silver medal. He was down on the whole sport. But something changed inside of him."

Stillings went to the tryouts last summer and was the last person cut from the A team. Teti told him to stick with it.

At nationals, Stillings guided the B team to an upset over the A team. Teti asked him to row in the Pan American Games this summer, which is where Stillings' story takes a turn for Hollywood.

Twenty years removed from the gold medal he won at the Pan Am Games in 1983, Stillings guided a group that averaged 23 years old to gold, the only race in 14 won by an American boat.

It was sweeter than the Olympic silver, more memorable than guiding his senior boat at the UW to victory at the Henley Regatta, his top memory in a rowing legacy filled with worthy candidates.

Stillings wants to be a coxswain in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and believes he has a shot at making that team. The precedent holds up, too, with Stillings recalling the last time a man his age led young men to Olympic glory: 1964, coincidentally the last time a U.S. boat took an Olympic men's gold medal.

He knows victory and defeat are never far apart, the former never tasting quite as sweet without the latter lengthening the journey. And for a man who thought he lost everything two decades ago, that journey provided the finding of something even more valuable:

Himself.

"I was really unfair, really irresponsible, for being so locked into the fact I didn't win," Stillings said. "Now, I can savor the feeling of just being an Olympian. No one can ever take that away from me.

"I know what they mean about the whole taking-part experience, not the victory, but the real essence of being an Olympian. I can savor it now."

9 AquaSox suspended

The brawl that broke out between the Everett AquaSox and the Eugene Emeralds on Thursday at Everett Memorial Stadium was bad enough. That it happened on Kids' Day at the ballpark was deplorable.

Nine AquaSox players and nine Eugene Emeralds players were suspended for three games and drew fines described as "substantial."

"It's embarrassing," owner Mark Sperandio said of the brawl that broke out in the ninth inning with the AquaSox leading 8-0. "There's no place for it in minor-league baseball. On Kids' Day, too. I'm sure the players don't think about that. But it's unfortunate. That's not what we're about."

There was bad blood between the teams after eight batters were hit by pitches in the three-game homestand. The suspensions — which included pitcher Felix Hernandez, who leads the Northwest League in wins and earned-run average, and Nick Orlandos, who leads the team in batting — leave Everett with an uphill climb to get into the playoffs. The AquaSox trailed division-leading Eugene by six games through Monday.

Also suspended for Everett were pitchers Victor Ramirez, Juan Ovalles, Audi Alcantara and Justin Ockerman, and position players Bryan LaHair, Chris Colton and Josh Ellison.

"No one seems to want to step up and take the division," Sperandio said. "But we need to win 10 of the last 15 to have a shot."

Snohomish season opener

Snohomish High School football players and coaches last week checked out Seahawks Stadium, site of their Sept. 6 season opener against Kamiakin of Kennewick as part of the four-game Emerald City Kickoff Classic.

They talked about how excited they are about their offensive and defensive lines, how steady Jefff Rodland will be in his third year at starting quarterback. And how brutal the opening slate looks, with games against Kamiakin (10-1 last year) and South Kitsap (9-1), two teams expected to be ranked in the top 10 in Class 4A when the season starts.

But coach Mark Perry doesn't seem too worried. There's only so much he can control, and these seniors went undefeated in their eighth- and ninth-grade years.

"Those teams are 19-2 between them," Perry said of the first two opponents. "But we're a pretty tight-knit group. It always works better that way, when everybody is working together instead of in fragments."

Around the county

• Meadowdale made it official last week, hiring Kellie Dalan to coach the junior-varsity basketball team and post players at all levels next season. Dalan averaged 7.5 points and 3 rebounds last season for the UW.

"She has a lot to offer," Meadowdale coach Karen Blair said of Dalan, who starred at the Lynnwood school as Kellie O'Neill. "We're all very excited."

Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or gbishop@seattletimes.com