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Friday, May 25 - 4:14 PM
All day long today, there have been comments on Twitter, stories on blogs, even conversations on radio programs like WJFK’s Mike Wise Show about depression and suicide. All were talking in the context of former San Diego Charger Junior Seau, who passed away yesterday.
People talked about how depression can affect you, the grief of the people left behind, and the disbelief of those who saw no signs of anything wrong with Seau.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room here in Loudoun County.
If you’ve ever read DullesDistrict.com, you’re aware Paul Draisey and I were very good friends. Two weeks ago was his funeral after he took his own life the previous Monday.
I wish I could tell you why he made the decision he did. I wish I could tell you the warning signs that were there that we all missed. I wish all of us who knew him could stop replaying every conversation we had with him over the past month, trying to analyze what anyone could have done that might have made a difference. I wish he were here so I could grab him by the collar with all my might and scream at him that there was no problem so great his family and friends couldn’t have helped him get through it.
But I can’t. He’s gone.
I can tell you one awful decision won’t deter from the years of laughter, friendship and camaraderie I enjoyed with Paul. He was at times bigger than life in the people he knew and the people he cared about. The day after his death, my phone never stopped ringing, as friends called friends, trying to console each other. It’s what Paul did every day, making sure if he hadn’t heard from someone, that they were OK. We were all filling that void with each other.
I can also tell you that from what I’ve learned about depression and suicide since the funeral, people who suffer from this affliction can be helped. Depression, I’ve discovered, is a physical, chemical illness in the brain where a person can stop thinking clearly. Options that would be unthinkable become acceptable as the illness takes hold, and people that are severely depressed actually start acting relieved or happy in their final days because they believe they’ve thought it through and made a good decision.
Over 70 percent of such cases are treatable with therapy and medication. Unfortunately, less than half ever seek treatment as the social stigma of “mental illness,” where people think it’s a “weakness of character,” persuades them to keep it to themselves. Sometimes with tragic results.
I have learned all of this because ironically, Paul asked me to help out one of his friends who was a member of a group called Friends Of Loudoun Mental Health back in January. They needed someone to finish putting together their annual report and they didn’t have any money to hire someone. I said OK, and found them to be a great group of people who gave every dime they had back to people who needed help. Everyone is a volunteer. And just about everyone has watched first-hand a member of their families suffer some form of serious depression or mental illness.
For all of them, it is personal.
If I needed any proof they understood all of this, several members were on the phone the day after Paul died. Not in a “if you feel like talking, give me a call” way. More like in a “if you don’t answer, we’re only going to keep calling” way. They seemed to know what we were all struggling to understand. They seemed to know the thoughts of grief, guilt, anger, “why?” and “what could we have done?” They seemed to know exactly what we were experiencing.
It’s because they have. One member even sent me an email that night, simply saying “now it’s personal for you, too.”
So as a result, if I have any free time each week, it’s now going toward helping the Friends of Loudoun Mental Health. If you haven’t, follow them on Twitter at @loudounfriends. If you can, like them on Facebook. If you have a business and need a charity to partner with, consider Friends. If you’re an area high school or college student and want to give back to the community, they need all the volunteers they can get. Are you a budding webmaster? Help me rewrite their website.
Don’t have time? Send in a donation, as every dollar goes toward helping someone. Not sure if you can? Just know if we’ve ever met, I’ll be calling you. Their email is friends@loudounfriends.org. Their website is www.loudounfriends.org. Their phone numbers and other contact info is there. Should you or anyone you know ever have an issue, there’s a big red button on the website that says “Where To Get Help.” Click on it and every emergency number in the area is there. Call one.
Sometimes out of great tragedy comes some good. The best way I know to honor Paul’s memory is to raise awareness of the signs of depression and suicide, and maybe…just maybe…it’ll prevent something like this from happening again.
So if you knew Paul, help out. Be a Friend.
Because now…it’s personal for you, too.
“I am very excited to get the opportunity to guide the Briar Woods girls basketball program,” Harris said. “Our motto for next year will be ‘Briar Woods in 3-D: Discipline, Dedication and Desire.’"
Harris started his coaching career in 1997 at Edison High School. Over the next five years, he held the positions of junior varsity and freshman boys assistant coach, and he spent three years as the freshman boys head coach. From 2002-2004, Harris served as the varsity boys assistant coach at Herndon High School and helped guide the team to both district and regional championship games and an appearance in the state quarterfinals.
After three years of coaching junior varsity boys basketball at Park View and Briar Woods, Harris was then the boys’ varsity assistant coach at Dominion High School, where he helped lead the Titans to their first district championship and the state quarterfinals in 2008-09.
Harris most recently served as the varsity boys assistant coach at Woodgrove High School in 2010-11, helping the Wolverines reach the region semifinals in the school's first year.
“We are excited to have Jim become the head coach of our girls’ basketball program," said Briar Woods Athletic Director Jerry Carter. "Coach Harris’ experience, knowledge, and dedication will make an immediate impact on the program. His passion for coaching and teaching will bring excitement to our school and team.”
Harris earned both a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in educational leadership from George Mason University. He currently teaches Algebra II and AP Calculus AB at Briar Woods.
I started DullesDistrict.com many years ago as a way to cover local sports because every local media establishment was downsizing its sports coverage. For a year or two, I really went after it hard, putting up game stories, pictures and video to the point I was almost making it a full-time job. Then my full-time job started pushing back, and now I pretty much only update the site during my favorite time of the year, football season.
But having a blog and a site always allows the opportunity to say something when you want or need to say it, so I’ve never thought about completely abandoning the site. And in the past two weeks, I needed to say something. It’s surprising to me how people actually read the post.
As most of you know, my good friend Paul Draisey passed away two weeks ago. I posted a few paragraphs about it as well as video of us doing the opener of a football game a few days after he passed. I figured it might be of comfort to a few friends and family of Paul, as watching the clip certainly comforted me. And I didn’t think much about it.
Saturday I went to Fed Ex to watch the coronation of Robert Griffin III, and while on the field, saw the Redskins’ Larry Michael. Larry and Paul worked together many years ago in broadcasting, so I wanted to make sure he knew about Paul’s passing. He surprised me by saying he not only knew about it, but had watched the video. How, I thought, would he know about the video?
So when I got home, I checked the Google analytics of the page with the video. Turns out about 600 people have watched it in the last week. Through the magic of search engines, anyone who Googled Paul’s name for more information saw the link to the video. It’s the fourth item listed. First is another blog by another former co-hort of Paul’s, Robert Garcia.
So while most blogs can be an assortment of musings that only immediate family members can tolerate, they nevertheless can be seen, read and searched for by people all over the world.
I’m not saying they will. But last week, at least for those who knew Paul, they could.
As most of you know, my good friend and broadcast partner Paul Draisey passed away Monday evening. For myself and a lot of people who knew him in Loudoun County, it has been an emotional shock that will take some time to recover from.
At some point, I will write more in remembrance of Paul. But he was an incredible guy, a true friend you could always count on, and a man who cared. If there were cell service in heaven, he would be calling all of us every morning saying "Breathe. It's going to be OK."
Paul loved a lot of things, particularly his wife Donna and his three children. But he also loved sports, particularly Loudoun County sports. I was blessed to do high school sports at WAGE and Comcast with Paul, and this site was basically started because of Paul. At some point we knew back then WAGE wouldn't last and we may one day need a reason to keep going to high school games. The solution was something we named DullesDistrict.com.
Tomorrow is his funeral, so I'm pretty sure there's more water that needs to flow from my eyes this week. But no matter how much time passes, the above video is my enduring memory of Paul. No man was more comfortable with a microphone in his hand, and no one made broadcasting more fun than Paul.
So Paul, ol' buddy, save a spot for me up in the press box. One day we'll do another game together. Until that time, rest in peace.
(DullesDistrict.com Photo)
It is an age-old story this time of year: Man looks in mirror. Man sees too much of himself in the mirror. Man vows to get in shape.
For Leesburg’s Tom Nesslage, that’s exactly what happened 18 months ago. Consequently, he’s now entering 2012 weighing about 170 pounds, a full 65 pounds lighter than when he embarked on the journey. The key ingredient?
“Boxing,” Nesslage said while putting wraps on his wrists in getting ready to work out at Silver Eagle Group’s Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Ashburn.
Looking at Nesslage, you’re not going to confuse him with the likes of Mike Tyson, George Foreman or Muhammad Ali, raising the question of how the urge to get in shape led him into the boxing ring.
“The moment when it snapped for me was when I was trying on clothes and had to go up to a size 40 waist,” Nesslage said. “I was only 30 and thought ‘Oh Man’, this can’t be happening to me.”
Now 31, Nesslage, who works for Verizon in the field of telecommunication at a desk job he openly admits contributed to his weight troubles, at first went the conventional route. He watched what he ate, skipped lunch to work out in the company gym, and tried his best to adhere to a schedule of three days of weightlifting and three days of cardio each week.
It worked for awhile, as Nesslage lost close to 30 pounds over the next 6 to 8 months. But then he plateaued, a not uncommon phenomenon in exercise. Or as Nesslage put it, “I got bored.”
So he went looking for something different. Health clubs had a certain “intimidation factor,” as Nesslage put it, “because you almost have to be in shape in the first place. You worry you’ll be embarrassed because others are already stronger or in much better shape.”
But Nesslage was also a gun owner, and had been regularly coming to Silver Eagle Group to shoot. He became aware of SEG’s MMA offerings, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“I was at 200 pounds and wanted to find something that could push my experience to the next level,” he said. “At first it was just something different. But the classes were small, the instructors worked individually with you and they push you.”
Nevertheless, the leap from running on a treadmill to boxing is not a small decision. Was he concerned with injury? What did his family say?
“My wife said ‘what’s going to happen to your nose?’,” Neselage laughed. “But there’s really only 6 moves in boxing and that’s it. Everything else is footwork, dodging and moving to avoid being hit, which is why strength and conditioning are so important.”
So you won’t get hit in boxing?
“You will get hit,” he acknowledged. “But we wear 16-ounce gloves to diffuse the punches, plus headgear, mouthguards and as much protection as possible. We’re not trying to hurt anyone. They are teaching us to learn from each other and our sparring is to teach each other what could have happened. It’s about as safe as it can be.”
Nesslage attends the boxing sessions twice a week (“2 of my three cardio workouts,” he says”) and credits small class size and the individualized instruction of Bao Khong and Shin Kim (who is also a 4-time National South Korea Judo Champion) with creating an environment that has pushed him toward losing the final 35 pounds of his journey.
“I think it makes a difference,” he said. “You get a focused group of people with an instructor-led atmosphere that is raising people up and hearing from each other, it almost becomes a classroom environment that fosters a feeling of responsibility toward each other. It’s pretty intense.”
Nesslage also credits the way boxing complements his other more routine workouts as a way to keep him exercise regimen going for well over a year, something that has certainly been a key to the 65-pound weight loss.
“It actually makes me work harder in the non-boxing workouts,” he said. “Because I’m now looking for ways in those workouts to get stronger, so I can be better in boxing. One is pushing the other.”
Silver Eagle Group offers anyone interested in participating in any of the club’s MMA classes a no-risk free two-week trial period, and if in the first 30 days since starting the trial period a participant decides to join, they will receive a 50 percent discount off their initiation fee.
Silver Eagle Group is located at 44620 Guilford Drive in Ashburn. For more information, you can call the club at (703) 723-5173 or see all of the club’s offerings at its website at www.silvereaglegroup.com.
