Columbine's mathlete

It's funny how when, you're bored out of your mind and start going through a yearbook full of pictures of people you've never met, folks who went to a school thousands of miles from your own in a state whose soil you've never trod, you stumble upon interesting little tidbits about their lives.

This kid was a mathlete, who had won the 1998 Colorado Mathematical Olympiad. The 1999 Olympiad was scheduled for Friday, April 23, 1999:
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A snowstorm threatened to cancel the competition ... but it went ahead:
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I actually found myself wondering about the overweight young man with glasses with the dye t shirt in that pic. There's a noticeable people less gap around him and he seems so alone. I felt quite sorry for him lol. I'm not sure if you'll know which one I mean.

LPorter101 wrote:

I have often remarked about the (somewhat remarkable, for me) fact that most of the seniors at Columbine High School were thin, reasonably attractive, acne-free, and unbespectacled. Alas, the same was not true of me at 17. It's not true of me now, either.

Colorado is likely the sportiest, most outdoorsy state in the Union... and that was a top school for athletics within it. I'm not that surprised.

It was also 15+ years ago... kids nowadays are likely somewhat fatter everywhere (including in CO).


Even Eric and Dylan -- who hated themselves -- were both acne-free and far from fat. Grass is always greener in the neighbor's yard.

P.S. That guy was probably on the swimming team in '97 (according to his t-shirt).

That's the lad. He doesn't appear to be sat with any friends, poor guy.

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Colorado is likely the sportiest, most outdoorsy state in the Union... and that was a top school for athletics within it. I'm not that surprised.

Lucky bastards.

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It was also 15+ years ago... kids nowadays are likely somewhat fatter everywhere (including in CO).

Yeah.

I was a freshman in the fall of '99.

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Even Eric and Dylan -- who hated themselves -- were both acne-free and far from fat. Grass is always greener in the neighbor's yard.

This is yet another reason why I maintain that, whatever sympathy one may wish to grant them, they were monstrously ungrateful*, and needed to see more of the world to gain a truer understanding of what they had.

But, then again, Dylan went to the University of Arizona only days before the massacre ... if that wasn't enough to shake him, then nothing was.

*Not only about material things ... they had more freedom at 17 than I have at 29.

I dunno, other than their criminal acts and their massacre planning, their other teenage activities sound quite similar to my own. Hanging out with a small group of friends (poeople who listened to metal etc). Playign roleplaying games.

Whatever it was that made them go on the rampage, I don't think it was anything about their lifestyle, their friends or regular teenage issues (music, movies etc) in general. Dykemann, Morris or Heins ha dteh same friends, did the same things and didn't even think about killing anyone afaik.

Regardless if someone thinks bullying was a cause or not, one still imho has to agree that there was something specific about the personalities and beleifs of the two shooters which made them tick and go boom.

Yeah, I agree, LPorter. They had a lot, just didn't see it.

Sabratha wrote:

I dunno, other than their criminal acts and their massacre planning, their other teenage activities sound quite similar to my own.

At 17, you were able to do a roadtrip to the big city (in your own car) and have the budget to buy a pretty expensive item (for a teen) like a gun + ammo?

Fine if so, but know that's above average.

lio45 wrote:

Sabratha wrote:

I dunno, other than their criminal acts and their massacre planning, their other teenage activities sound quite similar to my own.

At 17, you were able to do a roadtrip to the big city (in your own car) and have the budget to buy a pretty expensive item (for a teen) like a gun + ammo?

Fine if so, but know that's above average.

I wouldn't be able to buy a gun, as I'm Polish. At 17 I got a driver's licence and soon (don't remember if I was 17 or 18). A guy who was a boyfriend of my relative (somewhat rich doctor) allowed me to take and use a old car of his. It was a very old piece of junk (olde rthan me, buyilt in the 70s) Fiat 125. Was a real rust bucket, gearbox broke down some 7 months later and we just scrapped it because it woudl be economiclaly unfeasible even to reair it.

Having any car at 18 was probably more than most teenagers had, but it was not unusual and it was a real piece of junk mind you.

I said "a pretty expensive item for a teen", doesn't need to be a gun, as long as you choose to get it and have the financial ability to do so.

Eric and Dylan both had their cars at 16, and they were nice cars, not rusty 20+ years old Fiats.

Dylan writes, "Oooh god I HATE my life, I want to die really bad right now — let’s see what I have that’s
good: A nice family, a good house, food, a couple of good friends, & possessions. What’s
bad — no girls (friends or girlfriends), no other friends except a few, nobody accepting me
even though I want to be accepted, me doing badly & being intimidated in any & all sports,
me looking weird & acting shy — BIG problem, me getting bad grades, having no ambition
of life, that’s the big shit. Anyway ..."

He tried to see the good, got to at least give him credit for that. It just made no difference.

lio45 wrote:

Yeah, I agree, LPorter. They had a lot, just didn't see it.

One thing they didn't have was pride ... pride in themselves. They lacked confidence.

I never had pride or confidence, either. I was ashamed of my body and hated the way I came across. I hated being the fat acne-ridden nerdy guy, in much the same way that Eric hated being the short skinny shrimpy guy and Dylan hated being the gawky goofy smelly guy.

(What kept me going is that I was totally convinced of my intellectual superiority - I always thought I was always the smartest guy in the room. I'm only slightly more modest now. )

A little while ago, I spoke to a high-school jock who, if I'd met him when I was in high school, would have driven me to resentment and envy ... a younger cousin of a guy I know. This kid is 16, but could pass for 18 or 19. He's fresh-faced, but his body is very well-developed for his age. He works out all the time, and he always wears clothes that let him show off his muscular arms.

He's going into his junior year. He'll be a varsity wrestler.

I hate to sound like Cullen, but this kid's got the works - 6'2" (yes, I asked - I said, "Gee, you get taller every time I see you!" and he said, "Yeah, I'm 6'2" now."), 195 (yes, I asked - I said, "So you'll be in the heavyweight class, right?", and he said, "Yeah, I'm at 195 now and want to stay there"), strong jaw, and darkly handsome. He's also a good student, and even a pretty nice guy, with an engaging smile.

I've seen this guy several times over the past few months ... each time, he's looked significantly buffer and slightly cockier. There's some swagger in his step now. This guy's 17-year-old cousin was with him tonight ... he doesn't radiate nearly the same level of confidence, despite his going into his senior year.

I told him, flat-out, that if I had looked in high school the way he does now, I would have had a much better time than I ended up having.

"The ladies are going to be all over you," I said. "Some of the other kids are going to be jealous as hell ... don't let it go to your head."

I also teased him a bit - told him, "Be careful that you don't get too cocky and start thinking that you're the king of the school - I don't want to hear that you're going around shoving emos into lockers."

He laughed and said, "We don't even have emos at my school."

(Can anyone confirm that emos, as a group, are now extinct?)

I also told him that I've always regretted that I never got to go out and have fun - my mother was insanely strict and controlling and I was a near-total loner. I buried myself in my spergy interests.

"Believe me," I said, "you don't want to be 30 years old and constantly thinking about all the things that you didn't get to do when you were younger ... study hard, and do whatever you have to do to prepare for the future, but make sure you have a good time in the here and now."

I don't begrudge this kid his status ... wishing unhappiness on someone else won't make me any happier. If anything, I wish he would go out and do all the things that I never got to do. (If I'd looked like that, I would have been the cockiest asshole you'd ever met.) And for all I know, this could be the best year of his life - it could be all downhill from here. His older cousin, the guy I know, is in his 20s, but looks about 40.

But, yeah, if I were back in high school right now, and this kid were standing in front of me, I would be so intimidated and even awed by him ... he would be way out of my league, socially. (And physically - at his age, I was two inches shorter and nearly 100 pounds heavier.) I would resent him and hate him, and hate myself for being so comparatively pathetic. But I would give anything and everything to trade bodies and personalities - and, heck, maybe even brains - with him. I would give anything to be the kind of guy that other kids adulate, and not the kind that they scorn.

I don't believe for one second that neither Eric nor Dylan ever looked at the kids who looked like they had it all, and said, "What kind of a fucking world is this where I have to look the way I do, and be stuck in the situation that I'm in, and know that some dumbass jock looks like that and gets all the things that I want but can't get?"

Envy is a powerful thing.

LPorter101 wrote:

"Believe me," I said, "you don't want to be 30 years old and constantly thinking about all the things that you didn't get to do when you were younger ... study hard, and do whatever you have to do to prepare for the future, but make sure you have a good time in the here and now."

If it can be of any comfort to you, IMHO, that's already a way more enviable situation than, say, the one that Columbine jock Jason (who sure didn't self-restrict from having a good time back then) found himself in at 30... that guy whose video you shared.

30 is still plenty young to do fun things. And you're a brilliant mind... a guy like you will proportionately "shine" among his peers way more at 30 than in HS.

lio45 wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

"Believe me," I said, "you don't want to be 30 years old and constantly thinking about all the things that you didn't get to do when you were younger ... study hard, and do whatever you have to do to prepare for the future, but make sure you have a good time in the here and now."

If it can be of any comfort to you, IMHO, that's already a way more enviable situation than, say, the one that Columbine jock Jason (who sure didn't self-restrict from having a good time back then) found himself in at 30... that guy whose video you shared.

30 is still plenty young to do fun things. And you're a brilliant mind... a guy like you will proportionately "shine" among his peers way more at 30 than in HS.

Yeah ... but I'm not much better off at 30 than I was at 15. That's kind of what sucks.

But that's life...

What would Eric and Dylan have been like at 30? Would they still have felt that deep sense of dissatisfaction?

LPorter101 wrote:

Yeah ... but I'm not much better off at 30 than I was at 15. That's kind of what sucks.

But that's life...

How come you haven't put this asset (below) to good use in the meantime?

LPorter101 wrote:

(What kept me going is that I was totally convinced of my intellectual superiority - I always thought I was always the smartest guy in the room. I'm only slightly more modest now. )

I personally think both boys at 30 would've been okay. They were SO focused on their current school-centric universe that they just couldn't see that HS wasn't a representative microcosm of the real adult world.

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How come you haven't put this asset (below) to good use in the meantime?

Because I'm lazy.

And because I live in my own inner world ... I derive more satisfaction from learning about the obscure things that I find interesting than I do from, say, making money.

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I personally think both boys at 30 would've been okay. They were SO focused on their current school-centric universe that they just couldn't see that HS wasn't a representative microcosm of the real adult world.

Yeah, really.

But there are shades of the high-school experience in adulthood, to be sure...

LPorter101 wrote:

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How come you haven't put this asset (below) to good use in the meantime?

Because I'm lazy.

And because I live in my own inner world ... I derive more satisfaction from learning about the obscure things that I find interesting than I do from, say, making money.

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I personally think both boys at 30 would've been okay. They were SO focused on their current school-centric universe that they just couldn't see that HS wasn't a representative microcosm of the real adult world.

Yeah, really.

But there are shades of the high-school experience in adulthood, to be sure...

Shades, yeah, but the huge difference is that the "qualities" you need to be higher on the totem pole are a lot more acquirable. I mean that a given individual has power to do way more about it than in a HS environment.

Even the things you can't change too much, like physical appearance, are way more self-influenced and less genetics/birth pure luck.

You look way more like "what you really deserve" (from your life choices) at 40 than at 20. Plus at 40 you probably had ample opportunity to amass enough spare money to even get a few things "fixed" if they really, really bother you. Not the case at all in HS.


P.S. I derive satisfaction from many things... learning about the obscure things that fascinate me is one, making money is another, etc.

From what I can see, you're being a Dylan... Good mind, but poor grades. ;)

Mods, I don't think we should have threads where we use disparaging language to describe survivors of this event.

They do not want to see their names pop up in google in association with Columbine, and they certainly don't want to see disparaging language about themselves in connection with it.

lasttrain wrote:

Mods, I don't think we should have threads where we use disparaging language to describe survivors of this event.

They do not want to see their names pop up in google in association with Columbine, and they certainly don't want to see disparaging language about themselves in connection with it.

That is why I never posted the kid's name in the actual thread itself - it won't show up in a Google search.

But I will go ahead and change the title.

lasttrain wrote:

Mods, I don't think we should have threads where we use disparaging language to describe survivors of this event.

They do not want to see their names pop up in google in association with Columbine, and they certainly don't want to see disparaging language about themselves in connection with it.

I'm not going to delete this thread as it doesn't break any rules. I did, however, ask [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to edit the title and his description of the student (which he has done). This student's name was never mentioned, he was not called any derogatory names and the photos used are public photos that anyone can find on the Internet.

Even if his name did show up I'd say this thread is quite flattering for him. Gold in 1998, and would've likely gotten Gold again in '99...

Basically the best math mind in the entire state back then. If someone Googled me and that's what they found, I wouldn't mind it

I don't have the slightest idea about where he is now but I am convinced he's been very successful unless he got VERY unlucky.

lasttrain wrote:

Mods, I don't think we should have threads where we use disparaging language to describe survivors of this event.

They do not want to see their names pop up in google in association with Columbine, and they certainly don't want to see disparaging language about themselves in connection with it.

This is like an attempt at "soft" censorship, lasttrain. Why don't you take your complaints to Google?

Let me guess, you are self-designating as the person best qualified to define and identify "disparaging language."

If not, then I think we should remove all of your posts that infer that Eric and Dylan were "psychos."

Don't you think that is offensive to the survivors?