Kimball Faces Silent Protest : Mourners of Florida Accident Victims Watch Quietly at U.S. Diving Trials

They sit there in the stands, staring. The man on the springboard bounds up and down. Their eyes never leave him. Kathy Chuparkoff, 17, rubs 20-year-old Dawn Berrios’ shoulders, comforting her, because she knows that Dawn knows that the man on the springboard is the man who faces charges for driving under the influence in an accident that killed the boy Dawn was going to marry.

Jennifer Beck, 17, also cannot remove her eyes from him. He is the man who gives her bad dreams, the man who scares her awake, shaking, in her bed at night, because she keeps hearing his voice saying that he cannot give up, that he has to carry on with what he does, even though some of Jennifer’s closest friends no longer can carry on with what they do, because they are hurt or dead, because of the accident.

Cherie Beck, Jennifer’s mother, studies the man on the springboard. Up and down he goes. Up and down. All she can think of is R.J. Kerker. Poor, suffering 16-year-old Raymond (R.J.) Kerker, confined to a Florida hospital bed since the first day of August, a hospital where doctors have attempted to re-attach R.J.’s severed leg. Cherie Beck can think of nothing else except that R.J. Kerker cannot do what the man on the springboard can--jump up and down.

They sit there and stare. They fixate on him, soundlessly. There is a voice 10 rows above them, the voice of a female diver, Kelly McCormick, yelling encouragingly, “Come on, Bruce!” and momentarily Jennifer Beck swivels her head for a look. Then she turns back and stares at the man on the springboard.

Bruce Kimball dives. A forward somersault, into a pike. The water ripples as he breaks its surface. It is his first dive of the day, first dive of the men’s U.S. Olympic springboard trials, first dive since the 1984 Olympic platform silver medalist announced Tuesday that he would not withdraw from the competition, in spite of the fact that he is charged with five felony counts for driving under the influence in Florida, for which he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison.

Kimball has come to dive, so dive he does. He, too, says not a word, to anybody. He will not discuss his situation beyond what he said in Tuesday’s news conference. He climbs up, splashes down, resurfaces, climbs out, then ducks into quiet seclusion until his next turn.

The judges post his first marks of the day: 8.0, 7.5, 7.5, 7.5, 8.0, 8.0, 8.0.

On a 10-scale, not bad, not bad at all. Bruce Kimball calms down. The natatorium at Indiana University is quiet, except for the whir of an occasional camera and the polite applause of no more than 300 spectators when the dive has been completed. If there is protest to his presence, it is a silent one. He can handle this. It is not as bad as it might have been.

What he does not know is that the Becks and Dawn Berrios and Kathy Chuparkoff, Shari Wilson, Craig Diemer and Blake Bishop, the tight-knit, tight-lipped friends focused upon him from the stands, have driven all night from Brandon, Fla., just to make it clear that Bruce Kimball’s presence here does not go unchallenged.

He does not yet know that they have organized a petition that already, they say, has more than 5,000 names on it, and that they have written to Olympic swimming and diving officials, asking that Bruce Kimball not be permitted to represent America in the Olympics, should he qualify to do so here at the trials.

Cherie Beck wrote this letter herself. She intends to send a copy to anyone of influence, Ronald Reagan included. She and her daughter and her daughter’s friends called an impromptu news conference here Thursday at their hotel, after traveling 1,000 miles together in two cars to protest Kimball’s decision to compete.

His participation, their letter insists, is “outrageous and insulting to the families and friends involved in this tragedy, and it is equally abhorring (sic) that you would consider presenting Bruce Kimball to the United States and the world as the best America can offer.”

They are here and they are mad and sad. They have the support of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD). They have support from Students Against Drunk Drivers (SADD). For the time being, at least, their alliance is more specific. For the time being, they represent mothers and students against Kimball’s participation at the trials.

“Maybe we’ll let Bruce Kimball know that you can’t just run away to follow your dreams,” Chuparkoff said, “without the broken dreams of the people you’ve hurt following you. “

They say his son killed two people. They say he seriously hurt six more, including the teen-aged girl whose lacerated body already has undergone six operations, and the boy whose leg was transported separately from the scene of the accident by police helicopter. They say his son ran them down with a car, hurtling 70 to 90 m.p.h. down a dead-end street. They say his son has little right to be walking the street, much less representing his country in the Olympic Games.

“People are ready to crucify him,” Dick Kimball said.

Father and coach to Bruce Kimball, he watched from the sidelines Thursday as his expressionless 25-year-old son did all of his 11 qualifying dives without incident. Springboard is not Bruce Kimball’s specialty; platform, which begins Saturday, is.

It is unlikely Kimball will qualify for the Olympics in both events, but all of his first-round springboard dives were efficient, and by day’s end he stood sixth among a field of 12.

“He did very, very well,” Dick Kimball said. “A lot better than he did four years ago at the trials.

“It’s been very difficult. It hasn’t been easy for him. I think he’s really been trying hard to concentrate. I think it was real important to get that first dive in, and once he got that in and saw that there wasn’t any (visible or audible protest), he knew everything was going to be all right.”

Bruce’s teammates have been supportive, his father said. None of them has said anything negative, to him or about him. Not so, though, the MADD woman who shouted “Go home, Bruce!” at his son’s news conference Tuesday, or the journalists who, Dick Kimball claims, continue to ignore the darkly lighted, overpopulated scene of the accident, exaggerate the traveling speed of Bruce’s auto, refuse to research all the facts.

These facts all will surface at Kimball’s arraignment in Florida on Aug. 29, where he is expected to plead not guilty to the charges. Two weeks later, if he is free and entitled to do so, Bruce Kimball would leave for South Korea and the Games if he finishes among the top two at the trials.

For the moment he is free on $10,000 bond, a complete surprise to Bill James, state attorney from Hillsborough County, Fla., and, by sheer happenstance, former equestrian from the 1952 Olympics. James never expected Kimball to keep competing after the tragedy. “I thought he’d announce he was pulling out because of more pressing problems,” James said. “It shows he has ice water in his veins.”

Or something. Kimball endured after a 1981 accident in his hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich., in which a drunk driver swerved her van directly into his path, smashed into his car and left him with a face that had to be rebuilt from scratch.

A year later, he returned to the same pool at Indiana University for the National Sports Festival, wearing a T-shirt that read: “The Comeback Kid.” Kimball placed second to Greg Louganis, who pulled him up to the top pedestal of the victory stand to share the moment of triumph.

Such is what Kimball was referring to Tuesday when he said, with cracking voice and trembling hands: “I’ve dealt with adversity in my life. I’ve dedicated 21 years of my life to the sport of diving. I’ve made incredible sacrifices. I won’t give up and I don’t give up. I can’t live with myself if I do.”

Colleagues understood. Wendy Williams, a top U.S. diver, for one, said: “I wish it (the accident) never happened, but we can’t let it distract us. He’s here, and he isn’t letting it distract him.” Indeed, practically every diver present, including Louganis, emphasized that they were so focused on their own efforts that they could not take time to be distracted by Kimball’s.

Kathryn Owen, on the other hand, was outraged. A MADD member from Hamilton County, Ind., whose daughter Teri, 18, was killed coming home from a high school football game by a drunk driver who got off with a one-year work-release program sentence, Owen is the one who hollered “Go home!” to Kimball at his news conference, and she was still on the premises Thursday to side with the protesters from Florida.

“Nobody knows how it feels until you go see a zippered plastic bag and have identified the broken body of your beautiful child,” Owen said. “What he (Kimball) did wasn’t an accident. It was a crime. It’s arrogant, pompous and self-centered of him to compete. I work hard. I won’t give up . Hey, he made two people give up permanently. They don’t have any choices anymore. They’re gone. He took their choices away.”

On the night of Aug. 1, on an isolated stretch of highway called Culbreath Road that young people from Brandon use as a hangout and refer to as “The Spot,” police say Bruce Kimball’s sports car came zooming down the dead-end road. How fast is in question, but he almost certainly was in excess of the posted 25 m.p.h. speed limit. How drunk he was also remains in question, but empty beer cans were found in the car.

Kimball’s car at first careened off parked autos, then started hitting bodies. Ken Gossic, 16, was killed. So was Robbie Bedell, 19. While surveying the wreckage afterward, a sheriff’s department deputy of 19 years said, “The last time I saw anything like this was in Vietnam.”

Kimball was found, virtually uninjured, pounding the ground and screaming: “Why me? Why me?”

Robert Bedell, the dead boy’s father, came forward later to mock the fact that even then, Kimball seemed concerned mostly about himself, and to say he had no idea how the young man could proceed with his Olympic plans as if nothing had happened.

Dawn Berrios, Robbie’s girlfriend for 4 1/2 years, wrote a statement in longhand Thursday and read it nervously.

“Robbie was the essence of my life, and we have to rectify this injustice,” she said. “His love will live forever in my heart. My life is re-directed now, because it has to be. But I’m here for you, Robbie. At least when I go back home, I can say that I did something about your death, that I tried. That’s why I’m here today. This one’s for you, Rob.”

Cherie Beck read her letter. “The aspirations and dreams of the youth of America ride on the shoulders of each Olympic participant,” it began. “The special talents, the high moral character and the ‘role model’ image truly are worthy guidelines for our youth.

“Bruce Kimball does not meet these requirements! He may possess the talent; however, based on his pattern of life, he does not possess the quality and requirements of an Olympian.

“He has a horrible record of flagrantly violating the traffic laws in Michigan. His disregard for traffic laws and his driving habits have been similar in Florida. While in training for the Olympics, he has admitted to drinking in local bars. His reckless, careless and thoughtless actions on the night of Aug. 1, 1988, have resulted in the death of two teen-agers and injuries to six others. His actions have devastated hundreds of lives . . .

“The youth of America will hopefully see through the shallow meaningless image that you are about to present to them. We sincerely hope that the American people’s image of an Olympian is not tainted by Bruce Kimball.”

Jennifer Beck plans to go to law school at the University of Florida. She does not mean to present herself as judge and jury to Bruce Kimball; he deserves a fair trial. What he does not deserve, she believes, is to attend the Olympic trials, at least without opposition.

“We won’t heckle him. We won’t say a word when he’s up there on that board,” she said. “I’m not going to say, ‘I hope you fall off the edge of the diving board,’ even if that’s what I’m thinking inside. We’re not here to harass him. We’re just expressing our opinion of him.”

Shari Wilson nodded, standing next to her friend. “He’s supposed to be so emotionally ill over what happened,” she said. “If he felt that bad, he wouldn’t be out there. Diving takes a lot of training and thought. You saw him today. Did he look like somebody who had anything else on his mind? Well? Did he?”