Tod Surmon, 26, wrestler
T.E. Goodell
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Tod Surmon, a former All-America wrestler from Stanford
University who hoped to compete in the Olympics, fell to his death on the Las
Vegas Strip after climbing a light pole above a crowd of 300,000 revelers.
Surmon, 26, of Menlo Park, Calif., landed on his head and died shortly after
midnight New Year's morning. He fell after apparently grabbing an electrical
wire attached to the pole near the Paris Las Vegas hotel, witnesses told
police.
His family and friends said Surmon, who grew up in Albany, Ore., had always
been a daredevil.
``He had an invincible attitude,'' said his sister, Dawn DeFord.
Former teammate Beau Weiner called him fearless, yet said his risk-taking was
always calculated.
``I've been with him doing all kinds of crazy stuff and I never once worried
about him,'' Weiner told the San Jose Mercury News. ``He would never do
something stupid.''
Surmon graduated from Stanford in 1996 with a degree in computer science and
engineering, and worked as a programmer at Aeris Communications in San Jose.
Surmon was celebrating the new year with friends just a day after winning at
the Midlands Wrestling Championships in Chicago, a major national tournament
that put him in contention for the U.S. Olympic team, Stanford coach Chris
Horpel told the newspaper.
Horpel, who coached Surmon to his recent victory, went to a Chicago airport
with him Friday morning, where Surmon caught a flight to Las Vegas and Horpel
went to Los Angeles for the Rose Bowl.
``I said to him, `People are going to be doing crazy things. Be careful,' and
he looked at me and smiled and said, `You know I won't,' '' Horpel said.
Saturday. ``I don't know if Tod was simply someone who didn't feel fear the way
some people do or if he just enjoyed the adrenaline rush that fear gave him,''
Horpel said.
At Stanford, Surmon went to the NCAA championships three times, and in his
senior year was rated first in the Pacific-10 Conference and fifth nationally
in the 142-pound class. He was an All-American his senior year.
W989531
As in wrestling, one fall and the match is over....
Martin Evans
friends of mine who work with me were watching the whole drama unfold
while they're pan and brooming out on the sidewalk. They're still in
shock.
Tod was apparently trying was trying to pull a TV camera off of the
light pole when he had his accident. There were also two other young men
with him. One of them fell off the pole and hit a street sign on the way
down, breaking his neck and doing a Christopher Reeve to himself. The
other one was in a tree and he only managed to dislocate both his legs
after he fell.
I'm sorry folks, but it's kind of hard to feel sorry for people like
Tod and his friends who come to your town for the sole purpose of
getting drunk and acting like a mental case. But it is a damn shame that
it happened and I do wish his friends and family well.
"And we all say: Oh!
Well I Never!
Was there ever
A Cat so clever
As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!"
---T.S. Elliot, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ( 1939 )