Former All-American Kaschik Passes Away
September 02, 2011 | Men's Swimming & Diving
Sept. 2, 2011
Nick Kaschik, an All-American swimmer at USC from 1999-2001 who beat severe odds to overcome a rare illness as a young teenager, recently died on Aug. 20. He was 33.
A memorial service will by held at the Ayer Memorial Chapel at The Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., on Saturday (Sept. 10) at 1:30 p.m. Plans for a memorial on the west coast are scheduled for Sept. 17. Please check this memorial web site for more information.
Kaschik competed for the Trojans for three seasons and earned All-American honors as a junior in 2001 as part of USC's 400-yard medley relay. His best individual finish at the NCAA was an 11th in the 200y IM as a sophomore in 2000. He was also 16th in the 400y IM that year.
He was an eight-time Pac-10 finalist as well and still ranks 10th all-time on USC's 200y IM chart.
The following is a passage from his USC biography (in 2001) that detailed his childhood illness.
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Kaschik caught an extremely rare virus, in 1992, called viral meninges encephalitis, an infection of the lining of the brain. It afflicts one in every 300 million people and rendered Kaschik comatose for a month. Approximately 30 people had caught the disease before and only seven had lived. He beat the odds, broke out of the coma and recovered, though without much memory of the first 13 years of his life. He had to relearn everything he had known, from basic shapes and colors to who his own parents were. He had to repeat his sophomore year and his short-term memory was permanently affected. He has reclaimed some of the memory he has lost and has made steady progress towards the levels he was at before his illness. He credits swimming with helping him to overcome his crisis. Said Kaschik: "After I had relearned how to walk, all I wanted to do was swim. And I've been getting better ever since then." Said Kaschik of his memory: "It's very spotty. There are certain things that I remember. There are weird things I remember, like my first girlfriend when I was a kid. But I don't remember some of my best friends growing up." Said Kaschik of relearning his past: "Ever since I got ill, it's like you pick up with the life you've been given since you were sick. You learn about somebody else that's supposedly you."
