For Two Coaches, This Is the Life 

By Tony Kornheiser

Thursday, January 8, 1998; Page E01 

A few weeks from now, on Jan. 29, Anderson High School of
Indiana will play DeMatha in the DeMatha Invitational at MCI
Center. And as far as Ron Hecklinski, Anderson's basketball
coach, is concerned it is honor enough just to coach against
Morgan Wootten. "Some people would call Morgan Wootten
`The Legend of High School Basketball,' " Hecklinski said
yesterday. "But to me he's the legend of all basketball. I'm in
awe of him. I've followed his career and I've read his books.
It's a fantastic honor for me."

Anderson is ranked No. 3 in Indiana. DeMatha is ranked No.
1 here. So this would be an attractive game under any
condition. But what makes this game unique is that both
coaches -- Wootten and Hecklinski -- have undergone
lifesaving liver transplants. So they're truly brothers-in-arms
and they have scheduled this game to raise money for organ
donor awareness.

"It's just unbelievable to me," said Hecklinski, who got his new
liver in August 1996, six weeks after Wootten got his. "As I
was going through my ordeal, and waiting for a liver to become
available, I read an article in USA Today that Morgan
Wootten needed a liver. And I thought: `You gotta be kidding
me.' "

Ten days after Hecklinski got his liver he telephoned Wootten.
There they were, two high school basketball coaches
recovering after receiving livers. Hecklinski, who is 42, had a
rare liver disease, and he'd known for years that a transplant
would eventually be necessary. Wootten, 66, also knew he
needed a transplant. But his condition unexpectedly became
urgent -- and front page news -- while he was conducting his
summer basketball camp. "Morgan was knocking on death's
door," Hecklinski said. "I was only heading down the path."
(Though Hecklinski also took a sudden, unexpected turn for
the worse; luckily, in the presence of his doctor during an
examination. Just days before, Hecklinski had been on a fishing
trip. "If it happened then, I would have been bait," Hecklinski
said. "They'd have caught salmon with me.")

He recalled his conversation with Wootten: "Morgan was
about a month ahead of me, and he'd just started using a
walker. I was really depressed, because the surgery was so
rough that my body was reduced to almost nothing; there was
no substance to me. But Morgan told me, `It takes time. You
need to give it some time.' My doctors told me the same thing,
but to hear Morgan say it meant more because he'd just been
through it. It helped me not to panic."

You can read the details of Hecklinski's ordeal in Bill Gildea's
exquisite book about Indiana high school basketball, "Where
The Game Matters Most." But to see Hecklinski now is to
think there's nothing wrong with him at all. Hecklinski was in
town yesterday to promote the upcoming game. He's 6 feet 5
and 226 pounds, with color in his cheeks and light in his eyes.
He looks every inch a healthy man. "Your big goal is to live one
year," Hecklinski said, a hurdle he cleared five months ago. "If
you can get to five years, you're on a normal curve. My whole
deal is to live to 80."

It's not easy for a tough guy basketball coach to admit he was
afraid, but Hecklinski was terrified when it came time to get the
new liver. "I was fine right up until the time they began to knock
me out. Then I was scared to death," he said. "I was crying. I
thought I would never see my wife and 8-year-old daughter
again." Hecklinski didn't know what to expect from the
surgery, because he never read the preparatory manual they
gave him. "I read it afterward," Hecklinski says now with a
laugh. But he came through 11 hours of surgery and five days
of semi-consciousness, and he now wears two small, gold,
guardian angel pins that his daughter gave him.

There are stories about Morgan Wootten and the warm
relationship he subsequently developed with the family of the
woman whose liver keeps him alive. Hecklinski doesn't know
the identity of his donor. "I know he was a 20-year-old male
who died in a motorcycle accident, and I'm pretty sure the
accident happened near Lexington, Kentucky, where my
operation took place," said Hecklinski. "The smart thing for me
would've been to look through the obits in the Lexington paper.
But at the time I didn't. Six months later I called the paper. I
gave them the date of my transplant, and asked them to send
me papers from that day and a few days before. Well, the
paper they sent me from the date of my operation came
without the obituary section. Odd, huh? I kind of thought:
`Maybe I'm not supposed to know right now.'

"But I think about that young man every day. His organs saved
five people's lives. He saved mine. I think about him every
morning as I comb my hair and brush my teeth. I see my scar
and I think of him, and I think I'm the luckiest guy on earth."

Hecklinski has yet to put a face on the donor. But he feels his
presence. "People say when you get a transplant that maybe
you take on a little something of your donor's personality,"
Hecklinski said. "I was never a music guy. Before the operation
I was still listening to 8-tracks. But all of a sudden I like music
more than ever. I bought a CD player, I've got CDs coming
out of my ears. So I like to think of my donor as somebody
who was musical in some way."

Back on the bench Hecklinski thinks his coaching personality
has changed as well. "I was one of those guys where the game
was my whole life," he said. "I lived it 24 hours a day. If a kid
missed a shot I would scream. It never occurred to me that he
didn't mean to miss it. I have a better feel for kids now. I don't
scream as much as I used to. There's a more human side to me
now."

His story is as well known in Indiana as Wootten's is here.
Hecklinski grinningly admits he has used the celebrity to gain
advantage with officials. While protesting a call, he has gone
after refs and said: "I just had a liver transplant. I'm not
supposed to be acting crazy. Give me a call." He swears he's
gotten a few, too.

Sports brings all sorts of folks together. We've seen games
where brothers coached against each other, and where fathers
coached against sons. But this will be the first one in which men
living on borrowed time because they received liver transplants
will be coaching against each other. At first Anderson High was
denied permission from state authorities to schedule the game
here. The state rule is that no high school team may go beyond
300 miles to play a game. Hecklinski made his appeal simple.
He asked the board, "What if it was you who needed a
transplant, or your child -- and you had a chance to raise
money?"

For the first time in Indiana history the 300-mile rule was
waived.

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