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Tommy Kaider always managed to loom large

The great philosopher/ex-athlete/coach/comedian/adventurer Tommy Kaider taught us you can stand tall in life, even if you can't stand physically.

Just because a fluky thing sentences you to adult life in a wheelchair, robbing you of the ability to live a normal life, doesn't make you less normal.

It doesn't change the person.

A spinal cord stroke made then-21-year-old Tommy Kaider a chest-down paraplegic in the spring of 1998, but he never stopped kicking. He was the same guy as a paraplegic as he was before his injury.

His mother, Patty, said as much at his memorial visitation in front of a standing-room-only audience at Ahlgrim Family Funeral Home in Palatine last Saturday.

“Tommy,” she said proudly of the before and after versions of her son, “was still Tommy.”

She smiled, as I did when I covered Tommy for the Palatine Countryside nearly 25 years ago, when he starred in football and wrestling for Palatine. I ran into him in the high school gym one night, after he just finished a practice.

“Yeah, the Palatine Countryside,” the blond-haired Tommy said with a friendly, surfer-dude nod. “I read that all the time when I'm on the (toilet).”

He made me laugh. And proud. Hey, a reader!

That was Tommy. Your day picked up when you were in his presence.

He had been sick since January of this year, in and out of ICU with both staph and strep infections, George Kaider, Tommy's big brother, explained. When treatments weren't working, the fighter was sent home with an uncurable infection. Tommy died on April 20, at age 41.

He had been a paraplegic the last 20 years of his life.

“He was really tired,” said George, who served as Mundelein's head football coach from 2012-2014 and had Tommy on his staff. “He was tired of being paralyzed. He was in a lot of pain all the time.”

Who knew?

Tommy “learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” George said. It wasn't like Tommy to feel sorry for himself, to let you know he was having a tough day, again.

“Tommy cared more about others than he did himself,” George said. “I don't think he would ever look at himself and say (boastingly), 'Look what I did.' One of things that Tommy taught me — and taught everybody — was that he was never a victim. He always wanted to empower people, whether it was friends, family, or kids he coached. We talked about this a lot because I'm a counselor. He always said, 'George, the worst thing you can ever do is to make somebody feel that they're a victim.' He'd say, 'Nobody's a victim. There's no such thing as a victim. You got to be tough. You got to fight through it.' ”

The paraplegic walked the walk.

From his wheelchair, he coached football with George on head coach Mike Noll's McHenry team in 1998, the same year Tommy became paralyzed. The Warriors put together an undefeated regular season, before losing in the state quarterfinals. Tommy graduated from Roosevelt University in Schaumburg with honors. He had his own property management company. In 2013, he was elected Palatine Township Highway Commissioner.

To hundreds of young football players, he was “Coach TK.”

“There was no turning back with Tommy,” George said. “When he said he was going to coach football again after he got paralyzed, he did it. When he said he was going to get his college degree, he did it. When he said he was going to drive again, he did it. When he said he was going to live on his own, he did it.”

Big deal that it took Tommy an hour and a half to get dressed every morning. So what that the guy who once enjoyed white-water rafting and rock-climbing could do so only in his dreams the last 20 years.

“He didn't have any physical toughness necessarily because he was paralyzed, but he had an inner toughness and a mental toughness that was like none other,” George said. “He had a will to go above and beyond — and just make do with his circumstances — that seemed extraordinary. It seemed like he was almost superhuman.”

In Tommy's final days, George says his little brother remained proud. He wasn't depressed. He just lost. The infection beat him.

“He was beautiful,” George said. “I didn't just love my brother. I adored my brother. He's my hero.”

He is to many.

jaguilar@dailyherald.com

• Follow Joe on Twitter: @JoeAguilar64

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