Slain runner's coaches, teammates search for answers

Jarrett Slaven was still groggy as he mumbled "hello" into the receiver. A ringing telephone had awakened him at 4:45 a.m. Wednesday and nothing good ever comes from a call that early. On the other end was a runner on the University of Tampa men's cross country team, which Slaven coaches.

"I couldn't understand him," Slaven said. "He was sobbing uncontrollably. I kept saying, 'What's wrong? What's wrong?' He just couldn't get the words out, but finally he did. He said, 'Ryan has been shot. I think he's dead.'"

Ryan McCall, 21-year-old senior and member of UT's cross country and track teams, had been murdered in a robbery attempt while walking to the house he just rented near the campus. He had been at a birthday party for a teammate and was with a friend when they were attacked on North Boulevard, near the bridge over the Hillsborough River.

UT runners use North Boulevard and that bridge as part of their daily training run.

"I'll bet we've run over that bridge a thousand times," Slaven said.

He paused, breathing in deeply. He is 65 years old and has been at UT for 10 years after a 25-year career in criminal justice. He knows the horrible twists life can take. But how do you explain something like this?

"I have to be strong," he said. "I have to be strong for the kids. But there's just no way you can say, 'Hey, it'll be OK.' And emotionally, I'm just a basket case."

Distance runners share a bond. It takes special drive to make daily training runs that can stretch for 10 miles or more. It's certainly not a glamour sport, either. When the Spartans travel, they squeeze into a van for eight-hour rides. They sleep three and four to a hotel room.

"We're a family," said senior Jeremy Lautzenheiser, who was roommates at Brevard Hall with McCall last year. "Everybody counts, so we work together and depend on each other. If somebody falls back, we help them. We put in so many hours for this. We work together, train together, run together. There's not one person on the team who doesn't room with someone else from the team."

Lautzenheiser and his girlfriend, Amber Eisenberg, were driving down Interstate 95 near Savannah, Ga., two weeks ago when a back tire on his pickup truck blew out. The truck flipped over four times. Jeremy broke a wrist and Amber had some cuts and bruises, but they were lucky. He knows that now, more than ever.

"I've been trying to go over in my head how I survived it," he said. "I shouldn't have survived it, but I did. Then something like this happens. You just wonder why."

As word spread, team members started coming to the cramped coaching office Slaven shares with assistant Dror Vaknin. One by one they sat with their coach and sobbed, or stared blankly, or just tried to make sense of the senseless. All the while the cell phones of both coaches buzzed constantly, and one more time they listened, consoled, and tried to explain.

"I believe every one of them are thinking this really didn't happen," Slaven said.

Ryan McCall grew up in Philadelphia but wound up here as a walk-on after visiting the campus with his older brother, who also ran for Slaven. Ryan was an honor student and a volunteer track coach at Tampa Prep. He was, as Slaven said, "a funny, funny man."

"If you were down, he'd make you laugh," Lautzenheiser said. "If you felt out of place, he'd make you feel welcome."

On Monday, one day after the team is scheduled to report, the Spartans were supposed to have a team meeting to go over NCAA regulations. They'll meet with grief counselors instead. They'll wear McCall's initials on their jerseys this season.

"Close to the heart," Slaven said.

Slaven knows the pain his athletes feel. When he was 19, he was close to a cousin who was killed in an automobile wreck. For months afterward he would stare at the ceiling at night and wonder why something like that could happen.

No one had answers then.

No one has them now.

All that remain are random images of a young man that everyone liked and the kind of pain that sears deep into the soul.

"Like every runner, he did it for the love of the sport," Slaven said. "He would give you everything he had, All we can do now is put our hands on each others shoulders and support each other. These are caring kids and I have to help them the best I can.

"To have something like this happen is just a senseless, mean, evil act. It just doesn't make any sense, you know?"