Ryan Moberg dies vaulting in Walla Walla, WA

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http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/145688.html

Walla Walla teen dies of pole vault injuries
By Rene Ferran, Herald staff writer
Gallery: Week in Photos
WALLA WALLA -- Ryan Moberg, a DeSales senior who enjoyed helping out with Walla Walla Pacific Little League and was set to study engineering at Washington State University this fall, died Wednesday of head injuries suffered in a pole vaulting accident.

Moberg, 18, died at 9:50 a.m., almost 45 hours after he was injured on a practice vault on the school's indoor facility in its gymnasium.

Herring Groseclose Funeral Home in Walla Walla will handle the arrangements. Ryan's mother, Debbie Moberg-Williams, said a graveside service will be Saturday morning at Mountain View Cemetery, and a memorial service has been tentatively scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at the DeSales gym.

"The DeSales community is in shock, in pain," said Dr. David Schmitz, executive director of Walla Walla Catholic Schools. "This is a tragic accident. He was a very well-liked, respected young man."
The school is on spring break this week. Schmitz said counselors will be on campus when school resumes Monday.

The track team will miss Friday's Carnival of Speed meet in Milton-Freewater. When the team will resume competition has not been decided.

Moberg was an honor student who had earned several academic scholarships to study at WSU after graduation, his mother said.

Ryan played for his grandfather, Dwayne Headley, with Pacific Little League. He had since volunteered for the league, helping groom fields, build new batting cages and even umpire some games.

Ryan may have given up playing baseball, but he still was active with Irish athletics. He played tight end and on the defensive line for the state champion football team and was a team captain for the track and field team.

He qualified for the Class B state meet in 2006 in the pole vault but had to miss the 2007 postseason because of a medical condition.

The same condition flared up earlier this year, his coach, Mike Michels, said Wednesday, "Ryan was just starting to round back into shape and feeling good again.

"The whole team is devastated," Michels continued. "I've been in coaching for 35 years now, and this is the worst thing ever to happen. Ryan was just such a great kid. We're all just trying to feel our way through this right now."

Details of the accident, which occurred around 12:30 p.m. Monday, have not been released, although Schmitz said an internal report of the incident has been filed with school officials.

All Schmitz could say of what happened is that Moberg "fell backward" while attempting a practice vault. He said the indoor pit met national federation standards, which require a landing area of at least 20 feet, 2 inches by 19 feet, 8 inches wide.

Michels said vault coach Scott Notturno, an eight-year veteran of the program and the father of three state-qualifying DeSales vaulters -- Megan, Beth and John -- was on hand for the practice.

"He is a stickler for safety," Michels said. "If he's not there, they don't vault. This was just a one-in-a-million thing."

Moberg's death is the first known fatal accident involving a Washington high school pole vaulter.

Nationally, since 1982, there had been at least 18 deaths linked to the sport but none since 2002, according to data compiled by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research based at the University of North Carolina.

Pole vaulters are a tight-knit subculture within the track community, and Southridge vault coach Dave Hurst said word of Moberg's accident made its way around quickly.

"There's not a vault coach in this state who's not thinking of those guys," said Hurst, who has coached pole vault at Southridge for 10 years. "There are a lot of things you can teach, but you can't control what happens that split second when the vaulter leaves the ground."

Hurst was working with eight vaulters Wednesday afternoon at the Southridge track, including senior Cameron Fancher, a state qualifier last year.

Fancher heard of what happened and knows the risks involved in his sport.

"When a kid dies, it puts something in the back of your mind," he said. "But it's not something you try to think about. Bad things happen in every sport, freak accidents. People get hurt in football, but you keep playing."

Hurst hopes Moberg's death does not lead to calls to abolish the sport, which has about 25,000 high school participants nationally.

"Yes, kids are going into the air, and things can get risky," he said. "But I've had thousands of practices and meets without kids getting injured. When people say pole vaulting is dangerous and they should ban it, they're ignorant."

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Please remember before everyone gets into debates, that a familly lost a child. Please try to respect that. My deepest sympathies to the familly.

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From Facebook:

Hey guys, I have just received news that the procession starting at 9 on Saturday is private and for family only. So for those of you attending you can go to DeSales around 11 for the celebration of life. Hope to see you there.

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http://www.tri-cityherald.com/1247/story/146547.html

A sad day for track and field fans
By Rene Ferran, Herald staff writer
I consider it the least favorite part of my job.

Obituary writing, that is. No matter how many kudos you might get for a job well done, you can’t ever forget that the job was to summarize the life of someone who just passed away.

Such was the case Wednesday while gathering information to write about Ryan Moberg, the 18-year-old DeSales High School senior who died that morning from injuries suffered two days earlier attempting a practice vault on the Irish’s indoor facility.

The school, understandably, isn’t saying much about what happened that day. When I talked to the school president, Dr. David Schmitz, he said only that Ryan “fell backwardâ€

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http://www.union-bulletin.com/articles/ ... moberg.txt

Young athlete remembered for faith, friendship
Ryan Moberg died Wednesday of injuries sustained in a pole-vaulting accident Monday.

By SHEILA HAGAR and VICKI HILLHOUSE of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

WALLA WALLA ¬--- Ryan Moberg, a DeSales Catholic High School senior known as a leader in the classroom and on the athletic field, died Wednesday from brain trauma suffered in a pole vaulting accident Monday.


MOBERGMoberg, an 18-year-old honor student hungry for another state bid in pole vaulting during his final year of high school, sustained severe head and neck injuries as he landed a practice vault during an indoor track practice in the DeSales gym Monday, officials said. He was subsequently rushed to St. Mary Medical Center where he remained in critical condition. He died at 9:50 a.m. on Wednesday, said Walla Walla County Coroner Frank Brown.

A graveside service is tentatively planned for Saturday morning at Mountain View Cemetery, with a memorial service following at 11 a.m. in the DeSales gym. Herring Groseclose Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.

The shocking death of the young athlete has shaken the DeSales community as students, staff and coaches grapple with what has been described as a freak accident.

Monday's practice was a scheduled event for the five-member pole vaulting team, said track coach Mike Michels. Given the potential for inclement weather over the spring break practice, the event was moved indoors with Scott Notturno, the team's certified pole vault coach.

Michels said Moberg took a practice run but didn't make it all the way up. He landed backward on the runway. Falling in and of itself is not an unusual consequence, Michels said. But this landing was different.

"We just don't know why it happened that way," he said. "I've been going to state track meets for a number of years. I've seen kids break poles, fall in the vaulting box and just walk away."
As word of his critical injuries spread throughout the community, hordes of people flooded St. Mary, a testament to Moberg's character, Michels said.

"Ryan had a good heart and a good soul," he said.

"I think one of the telling things was that freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors ¬--- the whole school community -- came out," added David Schmitz, executive director of Walla Walla Catholic Schools.

Moberg's grandmother, Janet Headley, said her first-born grandchild infused the world around him with joy.

"He was very caring, an amazing young man," Headley said this morning.

With his sights on Washington State University, Moberg planned to study engineering, his mother, Debbie Moberg-Williams said this morning. Although those plans may have changed later on, it looked like a good fit and dovetailed with the four-year plan her son had laid out for himself, she added. "He was driven to go to college."

It was Moberg's relationship with God, however, that remained true through every situation, Moberg-Williams emphasized.

"Ryan had a big part in our church," and was immersed in his Lutheran faith. He went through confirmation, becoming a member of his church, and was not afraid to enter into intellectual debate with his Catholic counterparts, she said with a laugh.

Moberg was also participating in a youth program at Christ Lutheran Church, called "Peers with Purpose," which involves youth helping youth, another good fit for her son, Moberg-Williams noted. "I didn't have to drag him to church ... he was becoming committed. In watching him this last year, I saw him reaching out instead of in."

Moberg came to Walla Walla in 1999 at age 10 with his mother and younger sister, Megan Moberg, now 14, from Kelso, Wash. The siblings were very close, especially when they had to pull together to help her during a period when she suffered from a genetic illness, Moberg-Williams said. "They had to be very grown up."

Her son inherited the same health issue, familial visceral myopathy, although he tried not to let it get in the way and never wanted others to dwell on it, she said. The condition, an intestinal disorder, made it hard for Moberg to keep weight on his 6-foot-2-inch frame. Nonetheless, Moberg was game to try everything, including the football team, on which he played tight end and outside linebacker.

But it was track in which the young athlete excelled, his coach said. Sidelined for the first two meets by his condition, he was anxious to make his mark on the track season. His yearning to compete fit perfectly with the characteristics needed for a successful pole-vaulter.

"For the vault, you have to have speed, you have to have strength and you've got to be fearless. Ryan was fearless," Michels said, clarifying the difference between that and foolishness.

Equally important as the physicality of the sport was the camaraderie for Moberg, his mother said.

Relationships in general were important in Moberg's life, she added. "He had a lot of different friends. Ryan had not had a strong girlfriend-boyfriend relationship, but was really more like a big brother, someone they trust and be safe. We teased him all the time about his harem of girls." Moberg, however, was a big-picture kind of person, and focused on plans after graduation, unwilling to enter into a serious relationship at this point, his mom said. "He was waiting until later in his life."

Moberg's technical skills were valued by many, and he was known as a go-to guy for help in setting up music for a dance or running a computerized projection. But it was his blossoming people skills Moberg-Williams was happy to see in her child, she said.

"He was doing his senior project at Park Manor (rehabilitation center), and it started to mean a whole lot more to him than he thought it would. He was learning how to empathise with the people there, relating to them."

Although Moberg had initially been hesitant to go to the nursing home, he found himself stretched by the experience, she said. "He was going to go a few hours a week until the end of the school year, even though the project was about done. I thought it was a good growth period for him."

His stint at Park Manor was typical of Moberg's willingness to help others Moberg-Williams said.

As a youngster, Moberg joined his grandfather's Pacific Little League team, which was a special time for her father, Dwayne Headley, she said. "My dad didn't have any sons. He and Ryan were very close. Ryan not only played for my dad, but he helped him coach. He would come out and pitch or catch, when he could around school and his own sports. He helped clean the filed, build batting cages and he was starting to umpire a little bit," Moberg-Williams said. "This is going to be a really tough thing for my dad, as well."

Moberg played trumpet before and all through high school. Music was important to him, and he had "a ton of songs on his computer. He wasn't into rap, though," she said.

DeSales officials say as students return to school Monday, the loss of a classmate will likely impact them for some time. Michels asked that all churches throughout the community will extend prayer to those grieving.

Schmitz said students will be brought together for an assembly at the start of Monday. Counselors will also be available for those who need to talk. Already, he said, the students have responded "with remarkable strength and compassion for each other."

"Our community's strong, but it's in pain right now," he said.

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http://www.keprtv.com/news/17315914.html

A celebration of life - Ryan Moberg

Story Published: Apr 4, 2008 at 8:02 PM PDT
By Ryan Harris


Ryan Moberg was an 18-year old ready to take off on the next journey of his life. The DeSales senior had plans to attend WSU, majoring in engineering, but those plans will sadly - never be realized. Ryan lost his life Wednesday, two days after suffering a severe injury from a pole-vaulting fall.
I talked to his family and they were suffering, but they have found strength and will move forward in Ryan's memory.
"we just really miss him, and we know that he is in a great place, and it's us that are suffering," said Ryan's mother Debbie Moberg-Williams.
His father, Andy Moberg said Ryan was a true gentleman that made everybody feel comfortable.
Ryan also played football for DeSales, which won a state title this year, but he was planning on giving up the game to focus on academics at Wazzu.
Ryan will have an 11am "Celebration of Life," ceremony Saturday at DeSales High.

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Hi Becca, as far as I know cards and things such as that can be sent to DeSales High School. The address is 919 E. Sumach, Walla Walla 99362. There is also a memorial fund in Ryan's name. Its the Ryan Andrew Moberg memorial fund. Donations can also be sent to the school. Cards and Donations can also be sent to Herring Funeral home on Alder street but I dont have the address. Once again thank you for your support. I know the family appreciates it.

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http://www.union-bulletin.com/articles/ ... render.txt

But it was also during the spring that the accidental death of an area athlete diminished the joy of on-the-field success with a sobering reminder of life’s uncertainty.

Ryan Moberg, an 18-year-old DeSales senior, was practicing his pole vaulting technique in the Irish gym during spring break when he fell backward and suffered severe head and neck injuries. He died two days later, devastating his family and the DeSales community. Ryan was the son of Debbie Moberg-Williams of Walla Walla and Andy Moberg of Bothell, Wash.

But the school and the Irish track program healed and persevered. And it was more than ironic when DeSales’ only qualifiers for the Class B state track meet last May were a trio of pole vaulters — Beth Notturno, who placed second in the girls competition, and John Notturno and Mike Gibbs, who were third and eighth, respectively, in boys competition.