Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/503016
The devil had other plans. "I didn't realize how stressful my new job would be," Spider admitted. He started July 1, and two weeks later he was in the hospital a6er su4ering a heart attack. But there was a bright side. His hospital room was in the Mount Nit- tany Medical Center, within eyesight of Beaver Stadium. The Caldwells had driven back to the Port Matilda house that Friday evening planning to spend a three-day weekend with friends. Spider had not been feeling well when they le6 Vermont, and by Sat- urday morning he knew something was seriously wrong. He went immediately to the hospital. "They did an EKG and told me I had a heart attack that was caused by stress," Spider recalled. On Monday, he underwent catheteri- zation surgery, and things went from bad to worse. "I had a little plaque in one of my arteries, and during catheterization a piece of plaque let loose and I had a mini-stroke," Spider said. "The plaque hit my brain stem in the back where my vision center is. So I lost all my peripheral vision on my right with both eyes. There's the possibility that it's going to come back, but it will take up to two years. "That was tough the 3rst month. I could- n't drive and I couldn't read. And I got way behind in the athletic director's po- sition. We hired three coaches in two weeks and I had things piling up." Spider wasn't allowed to return to Ver- mont during that month of rehabilitation and realized he would have to give up his job as athletic director at Fair Haven Union High School. "When we went back to Vermont, I told Karen I don't want to go back to the school," Spider recalled. "I knew the stress is going to be worse than when I le6. I was on call 24/7 and I lived too far from the high school. It was a 40-minute drive one way. I knew I'd have to be there to open gates and make sure o5cials show up and buses and things like that. It was just not going to work." School o5cials understood. They were able to rehire a former administrator as the athletic director, and Spider went looking for a more relaxing job. His dream home was nearing completion and the TOP GEAR Caldwell checks out Donovan Smith's hel- met during practice. PSU's long- time equip- ment manag- er, he returned to Penn State in a new ca- pacity this year after serving as a high school athletic direc- tor in Vermont. Photo cour- tesy of Penn State Athletics