Hadn't Thought About Him For a Long Long Time

Indiana, Monroe County, Bloomington. Indiana University's (IU) Charles "Charley" McDaniel was the 1934 NCAA heavyweight silver medalist, 1935 Big Ten and NCAA champion, and the alternate U.S. 191 pounder at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The 1932 and 1933 Indiana heavyweight champion while a teammate of Richard Voliva at Bloomington High School, McDaniel lettered in football 1934-35 and 1937, and wrestling 1935-38 (captain 1938) at IU. Head wrestling coach at IU from 1946 - 1971, McDaniel's teams appeared in the NCAA Championships 19 times. He remains the 2nd winningest wrestling in school history and is a member of the IU and National Wrestling Halls of Fame.


He was my first Step-father. He started dating my mother when I was in High School and they were married while I was in Utah during my second year in college. He was the reason I passed Handball my freshman year. I had to retake it because I slept in and didn't make enough classes to finish the first semester. I was working full time at a evening job.. I was having the same problem the second time around, but Charlie saw me playing a match and waited to tell me what I was doing wrong. We were joking around and my teacher saw us and I got a C even though I hadn't been there enough the second time either.


When I quit school after my second year, he offered to get me back into IU even though my grades were terrible. I told him I didn't know what I wanted from school and it seemed a waste of time and money. We respected each other in an odd sort of way. He was the real thing: a jock of the old school. I was this tall hippie who wanted to be Jack Kerouac.


Anyway, he collapsed one day at IU. (This was while I was in Utah.) They rushed him to the hospital, found he had tumors and rushed him to surgery only to find that the cancer had taken over all of his major organs. They sewed him up and sent him home and told him if he was lucky he had a year. He was a big stronger than an ox kind of guy.


He wasted away to nothing. The summer before I hitchhiked off to New Orleans, my mother called and said they were taking him to the hospital. I went to meet them there. He was awake but doubled over in incredible pain. He could no longer talk and was moaning horribly. We took turns and breaks. At one point, I was in the room alone with him and he was sitting up all over again and bending forward in pain and I tried to comfort him and said something about my mother coming back in a second. He told me to leave him alone. It was the last intelligible words he spoke.  


I went and got my mother and he died about fifteen minutes later. I wasn't crying, I felt no grief. I liked the guy. I was sorry, but I was there out of duty to my Mom. My Mom looked at me when he died and cried on Charlie's brother's shoulder.


He was a good guy. I hope no one ever has to go like this again. Now they have pain meds to make it easier. But I honestly believe after seeing this at twenty, that if it comes to me like this, I'm going up in the mountains if I can make it and let myself freeze to death instead.