I met Brian Ullom in 1982 under circumstances that seemed to bode poorly for both of us. I was a dishwasher at the Capital Oyster Bar, and he worked for a small company that did cleanup of several establishments in central Austin. Perhaps five years younger than me, he had recently graduated from the University of Texas. He later served as a counselor at a school for emotionally disturbed children. I did not then perceive Brian, an easy-going guy from the west Texas city of Lubbock, as greatly driven but time would prove me wrong.
The first step in his rather remarkable transformation came in late 1983 when he became engaged to Louise Hemphill, who was then attending medical school in Houston. Brian spoke highly of her, and I have to say I was taken by surprise when he revealed a long-range plan of becoming a doctor as well. His father was an ear, nose and throat specialist in Lubbock, so perhaps that gave him some insight or boost not available to other medical students.
On January 31, 1984, Brian, Mary Lou Price and I met at Les Amis, a now-defunct French restaurant just west of the UT campus. After lunch, he said goodbye and headed to Houston to be near Louise and to start boning up on subjects he would need in order to pass the MCAT and enter an accredited medical school. I dared not say how I really felt, which is that the odds were against him. Did he really have the intellectual firepower and determination needed to complete such a long and difficult task? It was not that I doubted him, but I knew he was trying to do something that was beyond my own abilities. I wished him well as he left for H-town.
While I hate to say I was surprised, I was surprised when he passed the MCAT and was admitted to Texas Tech Medical School in Lubbock. Louise, whom he married in mid-1984—I was honored to be one of his groomsmen—began working at a hospital there as an intern in the field of internal medicine. At some point in the next couple of years, they had the first of their four children, a girl named Faith. In 1990, I made a trip to Lubbock to see the Ullom family. Brian snapped a photo of me on the porch of their house, holding Faith when she was but an infant.
He was studying and working furiously, refusing to fail. But there was a crucial moment when his grades were not good enough. Texas Tech Medical School gave him a choice: drop out or repeat an entire academic year to bring up his grades. Brian opted for the latter without complaint and had no further problems. He got his M.D. in 1992, specializing in pediatrics. His internship was in San Antonio. Since that was close to Austin, I visited him there several times. His son Daniel had joined the clan by then, followed in order by Bennett and Annalee. It may have been 1993 when I participated in the San Antonio Marathon and walked on sore feet into Santa Rosa Hospital where he was interning. Unbeknown to Brian, I saw him speaking casually but authoritatively to three or four female student nurses. He sure had come a long way from pushing a broom at Austin restaurants.
Brian, who had earned a license to practice medicine, completed his residency and then passed his boards in 1995. He and Louise consulted before moving the family to the state of Washington. He is a doctor and administrator at the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic in Toppenish. In 2002, he took Faith to Ukraine for a 10-day volunteer job in which he did pediatric examinations. Countless times, I have expressed pride in his achievements. But Brian, too modest for his own good, always turns my sincere compliments back on me by saying, “Yes, but you have written a bunch of books.” This is a classic case of apples and oranges—things that defy comparison. My view is that maintaining people’s health and restoring health to the sick is considerably more valuable than writing sports history books that are seldom read.
Even if they were of equal significance, the point is that a quarter-century ago Brian set himself a very difficult task and accomplished it in full. Whenever I read about a medical or health-care issue, I find myself wondering whether he has dealt with it or what his opinion might be. He is so busy that he has little time to write these days, a fact of which I do not begrudge him. What he has done as a husband, father and medical professional is most impressive. I have learned a lot by watching him from afar.
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