A Family Odyssey Into Pain

The race is about to begin. Ron Karnaugh walks out wearing a straw hat.

The race is on. His college teammate, Roque Santos, from the Cal days, calls loudly: “Let’s go, Big Ron!”

The race is almost over. His mom, Jean Karnaugh, who speaks through a voice box, is unable to speak. She is crying.

The race is over. His coach, Terry Stoddard, from Mission Viejo, also is fighting to hold it together. He says: “I guess you could call this a different kind of Olympic dream.”

The unfair kind.

The kind in which an athlete whose hometown pays his family’s way to the Olympics is awakened at 4 a.m. to be notified that his father collapsed at the opening ceremony and died.

The unkind kind.

The kind in which an athlete who excels in his event decides to compete because his father would have wanted it that way, but places sixth instead of first.

The Dan Jansen kind.

Jansen lost his sister as he was about to speedskate in the Winter Olympics at Calgary. He fell, he failed. And he fared no better four years later.

From experience, Jansen knew what Karnaugh was going through. That is why the skater sent a fax to Barcelona, telling the swimmer to hang in there.

Less certain how to behave, other Olympians treated Karnaugh with kid gloves for a few days, then got together and agreed to lighten up around him. It was doing Ron no good with everybody whispering and steering clear of him.

But what would they do if they were him?

“I’ll tell you true,” says Martin Zubero, a backstroke gold medalist from Florida who swam here for Spain. “If it had happened to me? No way. I wouldn’t swim. I’d never have enough nerve to do what he did.”

Olympic swimming is over.

Ron Karnaugh, red-eyed, leaves the swim pavilion for the last time. He steps outside on the way to New Jersey, to medical school and to the rest of his life.

His coach sees him coming.

“I have never gone through anything like this with anybody before,” Stoddard says. “And I hope to God that I never do again.”

The Ron Karnaugh some will not soon forget is the one seated under an umbrella-stand table on an artificial-turfed patio, choking back sobs, a 6-foot 5-inch, 200-pound adult speaking endearingly of his father and of the lucky straw fishing hat that his dad would have worn to see Ron swim in the Olympics had he lived six more days.

The son who said Friday of his father: “He was my best friend.”

The Ron Karnaugh others prefer to remember was the one who was in Havana when he was not supposed to be. His own organization objected to Karnaugh’s swimming for his country in the Pan American Games a year ago this month because an A team of the United States’ top swimmers was touring Australia and this guy belonged with them, rather than with the B bunch brought to Cuba.

The free spirit from Cal who said: “Cuba sounded like more fun.”

Barcelona sure sounded like fun when the Karnaugh family of Maplewood, N.J., made travel plans. A retired plumber turned fund-raiser, Al Brown, and the Summit Bank turned over $27,000 in donations. A bon voyage send-off at the Newark airport ushered away Ron’s parents and sister. Peter Karnaugh, 60, caught his son’s eye at the opening ceremony, took his picture.

Ron never saw him again.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.

“I was thinking of him, subconsciously. I could hear him, cheering,” the swimmer, 26, said after his performance in the 200-meter individual medley. “When I walked in, I could feel the adrenaline. I was fired up. I was beyond fire. He was there with me.

“He was a man with a big heart. My father went out of his way to make sure our family was taken care of. That’s why I’m here today. He taught me the values of hard work. He basically taught me everything.”

Karnaugh could have quit the race and everyone would have understood. He didn’t. He could have quit reminiscing about his father and everyone would have understood. He didn’t.

When he mentioned his mom, who had a laryngectomy, the swimmer’s eyes began to mist.

When he mentioned his hat, the lucky one his dad was wearing when he died, he could hardly go on.

“I loved him dearly . . . he was my best friend . . . he’ll always be there with me.”

Ron Karnaugh excused himself, rising from his chair, leaving behind the Barcelona to which he had brought such hope, taking with him the dread of a long ride home.