Facing fate
Karate is one family's obsession, and the force behind a father's quest to prove himself
"If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally
gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of
private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it FEELS
Erin Wigger / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PHOTO GALLERY
• Scott McKibben's fight
The Naperville Park District provides recreation programs and facilities. Scott McKibbin is a member of the park board. Call (630) 848-5000 or visit www.napervilleparks.org.
The Birt-Hogg-Dube Family Alliance serves as an information source and support network for patients and families. Visit www.birthoggdube.org.
The Cancer Guide is a Web site maintained by survivor Steve Dunn. It contains information on research, cancer types and treatment as well as patient stories. Visit www.cancerguide.org.
— William James, The Principles of Psychology
It is April, late afternoon. Along Lawrence Drive in Naperville's
Ashbury subdivision the trees are trimmed with buds. Family clusters
move across the parking lot of Patterson Elementary, shadows trailing
them into the yawning doors, their paths leading to the gym.
A class of children arrange themselves around the hardwood, perhaps
four dozen of them, all spinning arms and rolling shoulders, getting
loose, warming up. They wear white robes — gis — tied fast with belts
of orange and yellow, blue and purple and green. There is a circular
patch with three horizontal black lines on the left side, the symbol of
Illinois Shotokan Karate.
They are pixie in size but adult in attitude. They are barefoot and
move with precision, responding to the instructor's gruff commands. He
asks them to take the "horsey stance." With feet apart they punch,
punctuating each jab, "ha, ha, ha, ha!" He calls for a "war stance,"
and "10 rising blocks, go!" They shuffle forward in an eerie whisper,
arms curving upward — "hyeh, hyeh, hyeh, hyeh." They strap on padded
helmets, take places across from each other. Spar.
Seven-year-old Michaela McKibbin purses her lips in concentration, her
cherubic features are flushed, her brown ringlets toss about her head.
Her movements are crisp, accompanied by a low, sharp bark. She briefly
glances upward and her eyes shine in an instant of recognition before
regaining their focus, working around to the next thrust — "Kee-yaaaai!"
Walking along at the edge of the gym, sauntering into his daughter's
field of vision, is a tall, angular man. His mustache is neatly
trimmed, a nice suit hangs from his lean form. Scott McKibbin enters
the room quietly, but with a steadiness of step and purpose that hints
at someone used to slipping into chambers where weighty debate is
broken by gavel taps and roll calls.
He leans against a stage at one end of the gym and watches, a still
presence slouching behind spectacles. His mouth is a thin line as his
daughter faces a live, punching opponent. His eyes dance, following her
movements. She blocks. A grin twitches at the corner of his neat little
mustache.
"Woah," Scott mutters. "Almost got a nose job off that one."
The serious man, cracking wise. Youth, like spring, bounces back, moves in to take another blow.
Adulthood is different, more tentative, wisened. For Scott, at 40, it
is dealing with a body that breaks down, has broken down before. Still,
in a few hours, after his four karate kids have been shuttled home, fed
and headed for bed, Scott will shed his suit for a gi and take his
place in the gym among the kickers and blockers.
There's a karate tournament in six days, his first in years. And like his children, he intends to be ready for it.
Spirit and discipline
For the McKibbins, karate is the family way. Michaela and her older
sister, Ashley, 12, followed brothers Zachary, 11, and Ian, 10, into
the martial art. And the master, or sensei, of the family dojo is
Scott, who leads the bunch through "karate club" training sessions in
their basement.
The lessons: kihon, or the basic movements; kata, applying those
movements in a choreographed, imaginary battle; and kumite, sparring,
using what you've learned in a fight. Kumite is the McKibbin specialty,
inspiring Scott to battle his kids from his knees, ducking their
springy kicks and jabs.
"He got to orange (belt, the second level)," Zach beams. Although at
purple he's a few levels above Scott, Zach notes, "before I even knew
what I was doing, I sparred with him. He knows all our katas. Our dad
is our coach."
Barb, their mother, is the goddess of the car pool, shuttling each child back and forth to lessons, two, three times a week.
"That's what we do," she says. "We plan our vacations around their
karate tournaments. We just don't do anything without our children.
That's kind of what we've always done."
And what the kids do is win — armfuls of karate awards, state
championships, national championships. Ian has his medal count
committed to memory — 21 headed into April's Illinois championships.
They're hungry for more. All talk of exactly what age they'll earn
black belts; Ashley wants to compete in France, maybe even the Olympics
someday.
They wear their matching karate jackets, a clan, the Kickin' McKibbins.
But they've taken the lessons of karate to heart. Ian, a third-grader,
speaks of spirit and discipline with a polish beyond his years.
"It's, like, how you do it and if you do it right," he says. "If you
just punch a guy, that's nothing. But if you do it with spirit or soul
or heart then it feels like you're stronger and better."
When Scott's class lines up in order of belt classification, he is at
the low end. When the drill starts, though, he's like a taller Ashley,
Zach, Ian or Michaela.
He concentrates. He spins through a minute-long kata, feet making
hollow thumps on the gym floor. His eyes flash as he screams an ending.
"Hai!" There's a beat and he straightens up, shaking his head, a string
of evaluation and criticism scrolling behind his eyes.
Cancer will do that, rob you in little ways you fail to notice until
the moment comes. For Scott, it's pain. Little twinges and surprising
spikes and lethargy that saps his range of motion.
"I think it's definitely harder for me because of where I'm starting
from," he says of his karate. "Every day of my life I will be in pain.
But I kind of block that out enough so I can get down and compete with
people that don't have the same kind of issues. Nobody cares,
ultimately. The one thing interesting about these gis, everybody looks
the same. Nobody knows what's underneath that gi unless I show them."
A new kata
Along Scott's left side a scar snakes 14 inches, curving upward from
the bellybutton and around to his back. There is a bulge where a rib
has been removed. These are the marks of surgeons, who twice opened
Scott's body to cut tumors from his left kidney. That, you can see.
What you can't see is the aftermath. How the surgeries laid him out for
months, sapped his strength, played with his weight like a yo-yo, back
and forth between 230 and 180 pounds when he's usually a plate of fish
and chips above 200. Scott hasn't competed in karate for nearly three
years. They call it recovery, but for Scott, there is no recovering
from pain. There is numbness in the stomach muscles and nerve damage
along the ribs, causing pain. To treat it, doctors tried to freeze the
nerve to cut pathways to the brain. The treatment has had "different
levels of success," Scott says, which is a nice way of saying it's
failed. When the pain is intense, his energy plummets and his blood
pressure shoots to 180 over 90, instead of his normal 110 over 70. With
a daily dose of narcotics, he is able to walk at a slow pace, though
not quite as fast as his children. Funny, he thinks, for a guy a shade
above 6 feet 2 inches. Still, he is in a good period. Regular
computerized tomography scans have found not one hint of trouble in his
kidneys since late 2002. He is working again; his weight is good. He
won't risk sparring — "there's no good way to protect what's left of my
kidney," he said. To compete in kihon and kata, he'll vary the doses of
his pain medications, revving the hurt up around the time he enters the
ring, trading discomfort for increased range of motion and better
balance.
"I've been kind of amazed about how much of my flexibility has
returned," Scott says. "Ian is able to push on my back and get me down
to where I almost touch my toes."
Still, he knows that almost won't score him points. He needs to get
down low and be able to kick high, all with a crisp execution that
turns judges' heads. The perfectionist in him knows that, but he's
trying to make a more important impression — on his kids.
Scott's cancer developed as part of the rare Birt-Hogg-Dube syndrome,
which in the United States affects only a few hundred people, according
to the Birt-Hogg-Dube Family Alliance. Usually, the disorder manifests
itself in the skin, in the form of pale, round bumps on the face, chest
and back. As few as 15 percent of BHD patients develop cancer,
according to the alliance. But because the cancer is genetic, it is
recurrent — it does not go away. Because BHD is hereditary, each of
Scott's four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting it.
The kids have seen Scott flat on his back, in pain, out of it. Showing
them he didn't give up — in a critical time — is a lesson he can't
afford not to pass on. April's state championship is his classroom.
"I'm seeing how my training again is impacting my kids and what it is
doing for them," he said. "Those kinds of things, where now, without a
doubt they're never going to forget that day and probably, hopefully,
many days to come after that, those kinds of things make it worth
whatever kind of personal anguish or pain I went through."
Coach enters the ring
It's Sunday morning, April 25, and Scott's Subaru is rolling toward
Palatine and Harper College, where the state championships will soon be
under way. Michaela is in the back seat, bobbing her head to the
"Pokemon" movie soundtrack, as much a tradition on competition day as
Scott's gaudy floral shirts, which render him instantly identifiable to
each of his children as they compete in the thick of a 10-ring martial
arts circus.
Barb and the rest of the gang will join them later, but the whole
family is wrapped in Scott's meticulous preparation. For instance, the
soundtrack, along with Illinois Shotokan's annual highlight videotape,
are in constant play in the Subaru CD player and on the TV in Barb's
van. It's motivation, Scott explains, pumping them up. Scott also
manages their carbohydrate intake — pasta, pancakes with no syrup — and
keeps them off sugars.
The night before, Scott spends nearly two and a half hours ironing the
five gis, making sure the creases in the thick, heavy cotton are crisp.
He allows only clear Gatorade at tournaments — a spill from the colored
kind could tarnish the uniform. He's advised his charges to take off
their head gear when they're not in the ring — "it keeps the heat in
and puts pressure on their temples," he says. Once at the college, he
adjusts Michaela's obi, tying the robe tight.
"He's got a background in theater arts, so he has quite the knowledge
(of presentation)," Barb says. "When our daughters were doing ballet
recitals, he put their makeup on. He knows how the lights make it look."
Expectations are high. The top four in each division receive medals;
the top six qualify for the national tournament. But the McKibbin kids
are gold medalists, state and national champs.
If Michaela is nervous, she doesn't show it. She ambles over to the
practice ring where other kids are warming up, ducks under the rope,
begins to stretch. Scott hovers nearby, leading her through bends and
arm waves and toe touches. She practices her kata and finishes with a
brief little bow to her father. He walks over and guides her arm again
and again, showing her how to sweep her hand.
As a coach, Scott has a full day ahead of him, with his own competition
scheduled for after his last child enters the ring. He ticks off their
tendencies. Ashley will pray between matches, and responds to Scott's
tips. With Zach, he can hang back. Zachary is patient, relying on his
experience to wait an opponent out, with a calmness that teeters on
nonchalance. Underneath Ian's cool exterior is a mind that is
constantly working, analyzing and agonizing over mistakes. Ian can be
pretty superstitious, Scott says, preferring to fight on the blue side
of the ring, where he's fared better.
As for Michaela, "the kid is tough," Scott says, "no doubt about it."
She sits and sizes up the competition. When it's about to begin, Scott
kneels beside her and rubs her head, whispers in her ear. In between
her turns in the ring, he calls out tips from the wooden bleachers,
juggling coffee and a camera as he tells her to get her leg up, or turn
her hips more quickly. She finishes third in kihon and fourth in kata,
good enough fornationals. But in kumite, Michaela dominates, racking up
points and ending her matches in less than a minute.
Scott and Michaela walk back to the practice area, toting a shiny new
gold medal. They're met by Ashley, Zach and Ian, who nod their
approval. Barb soon enters the gym and the family is complete. If there
is any power in togetherness, then here on the cusp of the afternoon is
where a surge would gather its force, sweep through the rest of the day
and whatever it holds.
"We've got one state champion in the family," Scott crows. "No pressure. No pressure for the siblings."
A prayer answered
Scott made Barb swear not to sit ringside when he is competing, afraid
of what emotions will well up, afraid he might lose focus. So she
perches in a far corner of the gym with Michaela nestled beside her.
But her thoughts are with Scott.
"He didn't park in the handicap spot today, there's something to that,"
Barb says. "Today, he's not, you know?" She tears up, sniffles a bit,
then grins. "Today, he's kata boy!"
As the afternoon ticks by, there's little time to contemplate what
might lie ahead. Zachary and Ian compete simultaneously, with Scott and
Barb hailing each other by wireless phone from opposite sides of the
gym. The boys qualify along with Michaela for July's national
tournament in New Orleans, but they were really shooting for first
place. So Zach's second-place finish in kumite and Ian's fourth-place
finishes in kumite and kihon go down a little rough. The family's
competitive nature doesn't spare Scott. Moral lessons are for another
day. Right now, the McKibbins want something sweeter.
"Oh! I want him to win so bad," Ashley says. "It would be such a
confidence builder. And even if he doesn't, I want him to know I'm so
proud. After two or three years he came back, he did it. And a lot of
people don't do that."
With still an agonizing hour and a half to wait before competing, Scott
appears in his gi, checks in with Barb and beckons Ian to his side. He
hands the boy his wristwatch and drapes his ID necklace over Ian's
small neck, symbols that Ian is the coach now. The two of them head for
the practice ring with their heads turned toward each other, Ian
chattering advice. They step in the ring, Ian pushes down on Scott's
back and massages his shoulders.
"I'm probably gonna need to stretch his legs good and try to keep his
head in the right place," Ian says. "I've seen him do his kata at home
and he's looked sort of stiff bringing them up."
From where Barb and Michaela sit, they can see Scott and his group when
it enters the ring. "He looks hot in that gi," Michaela says. "He looks
cute," Barb agrees.
Ashley is competing nearby and having a hard time of it. She fails to
medal in kumite and kata. The family's attention is divided. Scott is
going through his first movements and Barb's big eyes are wide and
teary, drawn to the ring where her husband crouches and spins some 50
feet away.
She whispers, "please, come on, come on let him medal, please."
Silences are interrupted with sighs. "Those are hard for him to do,"
Barb says after a sequence that is particularly tough on the arms. "I
can tell by the look on his face that he didn't do as well as he wants
to and it's because he can't."
The judges wave their flags, affirming Barb's impressions. Scott is out
of contention for a medal. But there is still the chance he might
qualify for the national tournament.
It's down to the last set of movements. Ashley has finished competing
and stands by her mother and sister, gazing across the gym, hoping.
"He's so very, very close," Barb says.
Another sigh. More silence. The judges signal. Then: "Oh, oh, oh, thank you!"
The family is up and moving to where Scott is, exiting from the ring.
It isn't a first-place finish, or even a medal. Still, Ashley is
ecstatic. Her own shortcomings this day — despite a first-place finish
in kihon — don't weigh on her now. Her dad has placed fifth, has
qualified. The whole family is headed to nationals.
"My dad kicks so much butt!" she says, moving toward him.
This is the way the afternoon ends, with a knot of six, arm in arm at
the edge of a manic gym, wearing grins they will take outside into the
still frigid April air, grins that will last the whole trip home,
perhaps, even, to July, to New Orleans.
Tomorrow — Part two: Cancer keeps its own schedule.
Contact staff writer Colt Foutz at cfoutz@scn1.com or (630) 416-5196.
12/22/04
