Helping Someone Like Bobby Mueller Benefits All

Bobby Mueller is the next generation. He is our hope. He is the kind of person we want teaching and coaching our children; the kind of person we want living next door to us, coming to our Christmas dinners and Fourth of July barbecues.

Bobby Mueller is the friend you call when your car breaks down on Aurora at 2 in the morning. The friend you call when your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your husband or wife leaves you.

He is as dependable as sunrise, as loyal as a boomerang. We need more people like Bobby Mueller.

"He's just a guy with a big heart," his friend Linda Kelly said. "All he's ever wanted to do is come back to Northshore and teach and give back to the community that was so good to him."

Usually Bobby Mueller is the one giving help, but today, he needs help. Today he is lying in the neuro critical-care unit at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, paralyzed from the waist down.

Mueller, 23, recently graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in English. A former pitcher at Bothell High, he planned to stay in the area, teach English and coach baseball.

For a graduation present, his aunt, Nancy Noe, gave him airfare to visit two stepbrothers in Indianapolis. Bobby planned a side trip to see his favorite baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He told friends he was going to see the Pirates play, if it was the last thing he did.

It almost was.

He lost control of his rental car on the return trip from Pittsburgh. The car flipped upside down and caved in the roof.

His spinal cord was severed. He was helicoptered to Indianapolis and a week later, July 21, he underwent several surgeries to stabilize his spine and reconstruct his face. He will remain at Methodist Hospital for at least another three months.

When Mark Oglesby heard the news, he called his former high-school freshman basketball coach, Dave Van Cleave, in Reno for advice.

Van Cleave coached from a wheelchair. Years before, he had been hit by a drunk driver and suffered a broken neck. Oglesby wrote down everything Van Cleave told him.

"He told me there were things I should stress to Bobby," said Oglesby, the head baseball coach at Bothell in 1993, when Mueller was the junior-varsity coach. "First, he is still alive. That's good news. Second, there are so many things that can be done for those kind of injuries and the technology keeps changing, keeps getting better.

"He told me, Bobby has to realize his life isn't over and there are no limits to what he can do if he's willing to work."

Bobby will do the work. He did it all through college, taking Metro buses every day from Bothell to the University of Washington. He was on a first-name basis with most of his drivers.

Still, he faces the most daunting fight imaginable. And although he has the emotional tools to press this fight, he doesn't have the money.

He doesn't have health insurance and each day the bills mount higher, an Everest of insistent debt. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay alive, to recover his health so he can teach and coach again.

"Bobby's always had a heart of gold," Kelly said. "I know he'd be the first one over helping us if it were one of our boys.

"He's just the kind of guy who would roll up his sleeves and do whatever it took."

His friends are organizing a grass roots fund-raising campaign.

A celebrity baseball game is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday at Bothell's Pop Keeney Field. The game needs players and fans and donations.

There will be the usual bake sales, yard sales and car washes, perhaps a golf tournament. You get the feeling the entire community will do whatever it takes to help him. Give them the land and they'll probably build him a home.

There are dozens of deserving charities and only a finite amount of time and money we can devote to them.

But Bobby Mueller deserves our help. Maybe we've never met him, but I get the feeling talking to friends that he would have helped us, whether or not he knew us.

He needs as many of us as possible to make donations to the "Friends of Bobby Mueller Fund," at any U.S. Bank branch.

"Bobby's goal in life has been to do something positive for the community," Oglesby said. "He's not a person who's after material gain. He's always been an upbeat guy. Whenever we would lose a game, he'd always think of something positive to tell the players.

"I heard he was making some jokes, even in his hospital bed. That's how Bobby is. But I know he's probably scared and I know he's going to need a lot of help. He's touched a lot of people. Now we have to give him something back."

Bobby Mueller is our future. Consider your donations an investment in that future.