Life has settled down somewhat for Hugh McCutcheon, the man for whom the Beijing Olympics became the best of times and the worst of times.
He is home in Irvine, but also back in Minnesota frequently, where his mother-in-law, Barbara Bachman, has recovered from the stab wounds she suffered in the attack at a tourist spot. The same attacker, Tang Yongming, killed her husband, Todd, the 62-year-old chief executive of a Minnesota gardening business.
McCutcheon says his wife, Elisabeth, "has good days and bad days," that her mother has her two older daughters living right next door in Minnesota, and that yes, as the youngest of three Bachman daughters, Wiz, his wife, was daddy's girl.
"She is the sweetest woman in the world," adds the 39-year-old McCutcheon.
As the inevitable momentum of life pulls him forward, McCutcheon admits to having frequent moments of amazement over what happened to him, his family and his volleyball team in Beijing, and how it changed him, probably forever.
"There is no page in the book of life," he says, "that tells you how to be a gold-medal winner and have your father-in-law murdered."
When it gets too overwhelming, he thinks about it as a "testament to the randomness of life."
A little more than five months ago, McCutcheon was just another coach on another U.S. Olympic team that United States viewers might get a glimpse of between long doses of Kobe and Michael Phelps. You find out about USA Volleyball once every four years, and they better be very good or you won't find out a lot.
It turned out both teams were very good, the women winning a silver medal and McCutcheon's men beating Brazil for the gold.
It also turned out that McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand and a newcomer to the top job in USA Volleyball, would have to navigate the most difficult of situations imaginable with an international spotlight shining on him.
The attack on Todd and Barbara Bachman, as well as their Chinese guide, took place the day after the opening ceremony. Had they been tourists from any country, it would have been a story. But when the victims were the in-laws of a U.S. coach, attacked in a country that flaunts militarism and had stressed security, it was front-page and network news.
McCutcheon was thrust onto a stage where the bright lights usually blind and paralyze even the best-prepared. Not McCutcheon, who just kept doing the right thing, right to the end.
