Column: God guided us to become and stay lifelong friends

Leon Skeie and I have been best of friends since 1973 and still get together once a week.

Skeie (pronounced “ski”) served as Orange Coast College’s athletic trainer and professor of physical education for 43 years, from 1973 until his retirement last year. He was the best athletic trainer — at any level — in the nation. (Not just my opinion!)

I was OCC’s director of community relations from 1971 to 2008. Leon and I participated in hundreds of campus activities together.

Skeie recently picked me up for a meeting at the college. We volunteer in the Archives Room of OCC’s Library.

Did I mention that he has a puckish sense of humor? He’d had a physical exam earlier that week.

“How’d the exam go?” I inquired as I jumped into his car.

He looked at me soberly.

“I could go at any time.”

What? Explosive laughter — not mine, his!

Skeie enjoys a funny story as much as anyone I know, and he tells them with great skill. Not me. I can’t tell a joke to save my life. I invariably leave out a critical element or bungle the punch line. Folks are left scratching their heads.

Teacher, motivator, coach and trainer, that’s Leon. But, he’s more than that.

The Newport Beach resident is a husband, father and grandfather, and a person of great character and faith. He led me to faith years ago, and I’m grateful.

We’ve been there for each other over the years. We laugh until we cry or cry until we laugh. We pray for each other and our families — aloud — without embarrassment. We’re completely honest with each other.

God gave King David a non-biological brother in Jonathan. He’s given me Leon.

Skeie was there for me when my son Jimmy died in 1993. I was there for him five years ago when his granddaughter Jessie tragically passed away. No need for words.

We were workout buddies for years.

“Jim,” Leon confessed recently, “when we went on those 10-mile runs I had to struggle to keep up.”

You did not!

“You were always just beyond my shoulder, pulling me in your wake,” I countered.

We were competitive.

There was a thick set Daily Pilot reporter — whom I’ll not name — who occasionally ran with us. We loved the guy but hated running with him. It was like dragging a sack of anvils down Harbor Boulevard!

An Iowa native, Leon served in the U.S. Marine Corps, then earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in physical education and exercise physiology at Iowa State University.

Skeie and his wife, Cheryl, and their two daughters moved to California in 1972. He served a year as athletic trainer at Corona del Mar High School, joining OCC’s faculty in 1973. Legendary football coach Dick Tucker recruited him.

Skeie was twice National Community College Trainer of the Year.

A workaholic, we almost lost him in 1984. He was teaching at Coast and running two successful health clubs.

Besides that, he was writing books, journal and magazine articles, and a weekly Daily Pilot column. Leon regularly put in 20-hour days.

One afternoon, he had a seizure and lost consciousness. Paramedics rushed him to Hoag Hospital. An MRI revealed a tumor, and he was taken into surgery.

“I was at peace,” he recalls. “I was confident that I’d be whole again, whether it was here or with the Lord. I couldn’t lose.”

The seizure saved his life. The tumor was benign.

Skeie was named OCC’s faculty member of the year in 2006 and was featured speaker at the college’s 58th commencement. I was there to cheer him on.

In 2009, I was inducted into OCC’s Athletic Hall of Fame, and Skeie introduced me. That was so cool!

Skeie subscribes to the theory that if you come across a turtle sitting on a fence post, it didn’t get there on its own.

“Think about it, Jim,” he urged me a few weeks back. “While at Coast, we thought we were in control of our lives. We weren’t. It was all God.”

I completely concur.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.