Tim Bright never let faulty heart valve slow him down

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2007 ... t-1-26.htm

Tim Bright, Phoenix High School, 1978

By DON HUNT
Mail Tribune
Tim Bright was a third-grader playing Little League baseball when he underwent a battery of tests on his heart. A cardiologist looked him square in the eye and said, "Don't overexert yourself, son, or you could die."

Bright suffered from a faulty aortic valve. That's the portion of the heart that pumps blood into the arteries and through the body, but Bright's valve leaked oxygen.

Thus, he ran the risk of heart attack or stroke.

But the condition barely slowed the superb athlete, who became a world-class pole vaulter and decathlete after starring at Phoenix High and Abilene Christian University.

Bright participated in four United States Olympic Trials, three Olympics and won seven national championships.

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"I was fortunate to have parents who didn't baby or coddle me," says Bright, now 46 and living near Portland, where he works as a project manager for a commercial construction company. "I had some limitations in what I could do. I never could have been a distance runner, for example.

"A couple times I almost passed out while I was competing, but it's just something that I lived with and was able to overcome."

Bright didn't turn out for track at Phoenix until late in his junior year â€â€