Riding with the Blue Moth

After the death of his son Will in the 2001 airplane crash that took the lives of nine additional members of the Oklahoma State basketball team and support staff, survival became a common word in Bill Hancock’s vocabulary. For Hancock, the former director of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, survival meant discovering a path back to a near normal life. That path took him on his dream journey, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic – by bicycle, and the 2,747-mile journey from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast became more than just a distraction. It became a pilgrimage, even if Hancock did not realize it upon dipping his rear tire in the Pacific Ocean near Huntington Beach, California, in the wee hours of a July morning. On his two-wheel trip, Hancock battled searing heat and humidity, curious dogs, unforgiving motorists, and the occasional speed bump – usually a dead armadillo. His thoughts returned to common themes: memories of his son Will, the prospect of life without Will for him and his wife, and the "blue moth" of grief and depression. That pesky moth fluttered around Hancock as if he were a beaming lamp pole in an empty parking lot. Some people suggested he cope with medication; others advised him to get back to his job as coordinator of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament as soon as possible. He found himself a glutton for his own punishment, however, unable to shake that blue moth from shadowing him on each step of his everyday routine. So Hancock chose to battle the beast one-on-one, taking the moth on the ride of its life across America in the hopes of shaking free of its constraints. Maybe he could lose it around a corner in one of the small towns through which he would traverse, like Hope, Arizona; Chickasha, Oklahoma; Onward, Mississippi; or Pleasant Hill, Georgia. Finally, on a muggy August morning, he dipped his front wheel into the Atlantic Ocean along the Georgia coastline of Tybee Island. The bothersome blue moth was still loitering nearby, but by completion of the trek the pest had taken on a new role for Hancock. It would not be drowned in either ocean, or in the buckets of perspiration he shed along the highways of this country. At last the weary cyclist was ready to accept that the moth would be with him for the longer haul.