Beech, His Football Future Still Doubtful, Gets OK to Work Out

There stood Mike Beech, 6-feet 6-inches of scowling 19-year-old, roughly kneading a tennis ball while waiting for the next--same--set of questions to begin.

He has come to call it 50 questions, this process in which friends, UCLA football teammates, reporters or guys sitting in parked cars quiz him about the events of the past four months.

He has developed a system for dealing with it. He simply gives half an answer, then adds “and everything like that” to fill the gaps.

Will you ever be able to play football at UCLA?

“It’s really pretty early to say and everything like that.”

How has almost dying changed your life?

“It makes you examine things and everything like that. I’m just happy to be here and everything like that.”

Beech is happy to be here among the living. He is not happy to be here among the spectators as the Bruins practice for their Sept. 6 opener with Oklahoma.

When someone jokingly asked him if the shorts, T-shirt and sandals he wore were the new Bruin practice uniform, he looked away.

“No. I don’t think so,” he said, unamused.

Minutes earlier he had refused to have his picture taken by a newspaper photographer.

“You know, it doesn’t seem to me I’m news anymore,” he explained. “These guys working out in the heat, they’re news. They’re going to play Oklahoma. I’m not doing anything.”

Nothing but living. And, possibly being a little closer to his dream of still playing for the Bruins.

Wednesday he was informed by Dr. Neil Martin, assistant professor of neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center, that he would be allowed to work out--run, lift weights, exercise--as much as he wanted.

Good news to the former All-America lineman at Newport Harbor High School who redshirted his freshman year. Since he fell 12 feet from a balcony last April, his weight has fallen from 270 to 240.

“This is great,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to get started with things.”

Beech will begin with light weight training and running for the next three weeks.

“He (Martin) basically gave me the green light,” he said. “But I can’t max out right now. He told me to see how I feel, and if anything is too strenuous to stop and come back to it later.”

A final decision on whether Beech will be allowed to play football again is still in the future. Martin told Beech that a CAT-scan will be taken in several months to determine if he will be able to participate in 1987 spring workouts.

“I’ll have to live with what he says,” Beech said. “But I know I can come back. It’s going to be hard losing another year of learning and developing my skills, but I think if I get a chance in a year I’ll prove myself.”

But Beech’s enthusiasm is tempered by concern of a comeback made in haste.

“Mike’s recovery has been spectacular. We couldn’t be more happy,” Coach Terry Donahue said. “But as far as we’re concerned, we’re not going to think about him until we get a complete OK from his doctors. This is a medical matter as far as I’m concerned, not a football matter. We don’t want him to attempt to make a step forward and just end up taking two steps backwards.”

Mike Giddings, Beech’s high school coach, said: “I think for someone as young as Mike, the unknown is a very scary thing. I know he probably wants to conquer this thing right away. I remember hearing that when they removed the wires from his jaw, he didn’t even want to wait for the novocaine. He just wanted them to yank them right out and be done with it.”

But Beech seems content to take this slow--especially when he weighs the alternative.

“I know I can’t come back too quick,” he said. “I’m just going to take things a day at a time. You know a year out isn’t much compared to what might have happened.”

It was little more than four months ago, April 18, that Beech fell from a balcony during a fraternity party. He broke his nose and skull, and suffered facial fractures and brain bruises.

After 14 hours of surgery, in which doctors had to pick frayed pieces of bone from his brain, Beech was listed in critical condition. Hopes for recovery were guarded. Hopes that he would recover completely seemed unlikely.

Yet today the only reminder Beech carries of the ordeal are dimpled scars on either temple and a long scar across the top of his forehead that is practically hidden by hair. And the fact that he is forbidden from playing for UCLA this season.

His recovery has been remarkable, but forgive Beech if he doesn’t get overly sentimental. As anyone who has ever had a leg cast can attest, the continuous curiosity can get tedious.

“I understand that it’s only normal,” he said. “And most people are honestly concerned. But when it happens day after day, it gets pretty old.”