A Lesson On Standing Up To Adversity

Gerald Mitchell, 62, runs his race. The adversity he endured 15 years ago is powering him through Masters track...and life. He has quite a story to share in just 4 minutes.

 

By Ray Glier

The “corkscrew” landings of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy aircraft, which weighed approximately 850,000 pounds, would press enough G-force on Gerald Mitchell’s body to change his blood flow. He was a Flight Engineer on missions in Afghanistan and would be belted in tight in a sideways-facing seat behind the pilot for these fast spirals to avoid shoulder-fired missiles from the Taliban.

There was a seven-day stretch of these graveyard spirals that finally had a serious impact on Mitchell. He developed 22 blood clots in each lung, starting in his left hip and moving up to his lungs. He was 47 years old.

“The doctors called in a priest,” Gerald said.

He chuckles now and says, “Yep, when they call in the priest, you know you’re in trouble. It’s ok, I had already worked things out with God.”

That was 2010.

Geezer Jocks can pick their own adjective to describe his bounce back the last 15 years. With less than optimal lung capacity and on a regimen of drugs to keep the clots from reforming, not to mention balky knees, Mitchell, 62, finished 7th in the 100 (13.7 seconds) and 5th in the Javelin with a personal best 39.95 meters, in the 2025 National Senior Games.

Gerald’s message is not to go see a priest before one comes to see you.

Mitchell’s message is similar to the slugger Babe Ruth’s message: 

“It’s hard to beat a person who doesn’t give up.”

“Adversity will either shape you, or break you,” Gerald said. “And so you can bend with it and conquer it, or you can just give up and let it conquer you.”

Mitchell has been in the conquering phase the last decade. 

In the 2023 USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in Greensboro, N.C., he ran 13.06 in the 100 meters to claim a bronze. Gerald’s competitors included the likes of world champion Allan Tissenbaum and stalwarts Don McGee and Robert Foster, among others. 

In the 2022 National Senior Games in south Florida, he was third in the 400. In 2017, at the National Senior Games in Birmingham, Mitchell placed second in the 400.

Over the last three years, Gerald’s lung capacity has degraded and he can no longer do the 400 and fast as he wants to. Even an all-out, max effort 300 meters for training is grueling.

“It's challenging some days, especially when it's really, really cold, or if it's really, really hot,” he said. “I go out there on the track after a rain, and you got all this steam and stuff coming off the track. I just don't have the air to finish what I'm doing.”

To throw the javelin, Mitchell cannot do a traditional sprint down a runway because of a surgically repaired left knee. He has to do a 3-step crossover and throw because he cannot suddenly stop and plant and throw on the knee. That’s why he was so joyous about the PR last month at the Senior Games.

You already know what this is Geezer Jocks.

It is just plain dealing with things.

“Every doc wanted to replace that knee, which means I wouldn’t run like I wanted to,” said Gerald, who lives in Durham, N.C. “I finally found a place to do the surgery I needed (at Duke) and did 18 weeks of rehab. That’s how I chose to deal with it.”

Mitchell didn’t always deal well with things. He had dealt with the vast complexities of helping fly a $167 million aircraft, but this life-and-death business overcoming the blood clots and no longer being able to fly was grueling.

For 3½ years, he drank. He gained weight. His mental health was upside down.

The Air Force gave him odd jobs and it wasn’t close to the fulfillment of flying. He was forced to retire because of lung scars.

Several interventions saved him. Geezer Jocks who feel similarly aimless, please, take note.

He was introduced to the National Senior Games. Then, a mentor hooked him up in Durham coaching the Junior ROTC kids at Riverside High School. Mitchell’s discipline and ability to communicate led the Riverside team to 1st place awards.

Next, he started coaching. He certainly had the proficiency.

Gerald might have well had a chance of making the 1984 U.S. Olympic team by running a 46.2 400 meters as a freshman at Elizabeth City State University. With a chance to jump on the national radar, Mitchell took a commanding lead in the conference 400 final, let off the gas slightly, and got nipped at the wire. One poor finish at a small, underserved HBCU was costly and a lesson knock he has held firmly for 45 years. A knee injury further spoiled the dream.

This is who you want as a coach. A man who shares his missteps. Today, Gerald uses what he learned in college to coach “old school” track & field.

“We did a lot of stretching, laying on our back, stretching, and it was a bunch of different stretches that we did then, that give you the same results as the stuff that they're doing now," Mitchell said. “Things like putting a foot up on the fence, and stretching.

“We did ‘timed runs’ back in the day and that's exactly what I'm doing now. If we’re doing 200s in practice and I set the watch to 28 seconds, I have to run 28 seconds. You should see your time just start to get better. You get stronger as you run that 200.”

The other thing that has helped Gerald mentally is donating to Soldiers’ Angels, an organization that helps soldiers just back from the frontlines who may be injured, or just alone, and need basic necessities.

Some may be going through adversity that seems bottomless. It’s not.

And it is a magnificent thing, Mitchell will tell you, to come out of the other end from an ordeal. Some people find courage they didn't know they had.

“You know, when you're going through it, you don't actually see the benefits of going through it," Gerald said. “It's only in hindsight you say, ‘Ok, now I see what the benefit was.’

“I was in the Air Force those last three and a half years doing jobs that nobody else wanted to do. It was hard, but we all need that adversity.”