When Draney, who grew up in Washington, moved to Afton in the Star Valley area of Wyoming for his senior year of high school, it was a good day for the local coaches. A gift fell in their laps. Draney was tall and fast and he dazzled his new classmates because not only could he dunk a basketball, he could do it just about any way you could imagine it.

Draney was also an expert fly fisherman and an excellent musician who over the years played the violin at high school graduation ceremonies, church meetings, seminary and school functions.

"He was good at everything he did," says Terryl.

A devout Mormon, he tended to see things in black and white; there were no gray areas. As a young boy sitting at a ball game one night with his father, he pointed out the No Smoking signs to a total stranger and told him to put out his cigarette. During a trip to a basketball game, he once stood up on the team bus and reprimanded the team for using foul language. After graduating from high school, he served a two-year mission in Brazil for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He threw most of his energy into sports. He set four state records in the long jump, high jump, triple jump and high hurdles and accounted for more than half of his team's points en route to the team championship. Competing for BYU at the Western Athletic Conference championships, he won the triple jump in 1988 and the decathlon in 1989 and qualified for the NCAA championships, where an injury prevented him from finishing the competition.

He high-jumped 7 feet, 1 inch; he long-jumped 24 feet, 6 inches; he scored 7,443 points in the decathlon. After completing his eligibility, he went to Puerto Rico to train for the Olympics, hoping to represent the United States or, possibly, this new homeland, but he ran out of money and had to return home after a few months.

"His whole life was wrapped in athletics," says Robison. "He wanted to be so successful. His goal was to make the Olympics. It was everything. But at the same time his poor old body wouldn't hold together. He was always injured."

Happy New Year! Just wanted to let everyone know how David is doing. And he is doing great which made the holidays happy for us. We did not escape the Emergency Room though. David's catheter got clogged up so the home health nurse took it out and couldn't get another one in. . . . Dr. (Allen) Carter came over the other night and said to David that he just seems to get better and better. Not really though. He was just pretty sick in Oct/Nov and we were wondering if he was even going to make to the holidays. — Carol

She first saw Draney at the swimming pool of their apartment in Provo, where both were BYU students. "He was 6-4, dark and handsome," Carol recalls.