Marion was a teammate of mine on the cross country and track teams at Cupertino High School in the early '70s. I stumbled on this last night, which is an obituary from the San Jose Mercury. He was a sophomore when I was a senior, but we were pretty good friends anyway. He was a good kid and a great runner and pole vaulter. He set the school pole vault record as a sophomore and seemed destined to go quite a bit farther.
He had been teased as a child about having a girls name so he usually pronounced his name "Morion". He was definitely not a girl, although I have no idea about his sexuality. We talked about all sorts of things in the two years we were teammates. I think he thought of me as a sort of mentor, although he was a better runner than I was by far.
His older brother Baron was also a teammate and I knew him well too. The last time I saw either of them, Baron had just enlisted in the army, and would join up after finishing high school. Apparently Marion joined the army too and worked as a recruiter.
The article says Marion had a stroke which made him quadriplegic. It doesn't give a date, but it looks like it happened in 1990, give or take. Marion would have been about 38. 19 years later, in July 2009, the house he and his family had grown up in burned. His mother was able to get out, but Marion was not. (This house was in Rancho Rinconada, a housing development in Cupertino, not far from the High School)
My heart aches. Rest in peace, Marion.
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