Author: Jason Vondersmith

On the basketball court, where the scoreboard determines the truth and victories earn the trust, it all makes sense to Danny WInchester. Everywhere else, he still searches for answers. He may walk among the masses at Lewis & Clark College, but he thinks among the poets and priests and gods: Where lies the truth? Who can you trust?

Perhaps the person who brought him into the world sheds the most telling light on the mystery man of Palatine Hill. “Danny is one of the kindest, most unique, most tenacious, most courageous, most sincere, most loving, most Christlike people I have ever known,” says his mother, Linda. “No bias.”

Winchester’s story is better explained through feelings, interpretation, and theory than with words. It is either complex, or it is purely simple. He came to Lewis & Clark last year from his hometown of Sacramento, California, with an excellent 3-point shot, a red water jug, some head-scratching behavior, a Bible, a friendly disposition and plenty of life experience – including a traumatic automobile accident. He carries all of this and more – for a metaphysical journey to the celestial or the basketball team’s road trips to Salem and McMinnville.

Winchester lit up the Northwest Conference last season, shooting 47 percent from 3-point territory to lead the league. This season, he ranks second on the team in scoring at 15 points per game and leads the conference in 3-point accuracy again at 51 percent. Winchester, who comes from a family of achievers, prides himself on doing basketball best. “That is what I consider service to my community,” he says. “Playing ball, entertaining people.”

You don’t hear sports cliches from Winchester, 23, as you do with many other athletes. You hear words produced from deep thought. You hear genuine idealism and expressions of kindness and innocence. He bleeds introspection. Often, you hear only three words, accompanied by the perplexed look that has become Winchester’s signature. “I don’t know,” he will simply say. “There’s no mystery about Danny when you understand how he communicates,” his mother says.

Winchester has long suffered from an auditory processing condition, broadly described as aphasia, an at other times low-level autism. Originally, his parents thought he was deaf, and doctors performed surgeries on his ear canals and palette. Winchester would rarely talk and seemed oblivious to people around him, his mother says.

Today, he hears all sounds but often cannot block out extraneous noise or conversation, or cannot patch together words and formulate responses. You often need to repeat yourself around him. The problem comes and goes, and classroom work has been “a war zone,” according to one family member. “I don’t know how to describe it,” Winchester says. “The whole subject is best not to be talked about.” Even his father, a prominent cardiologist, has given up trying to pinpoint the medical reason for the condition, instead just cherishing his special son. “We have decided to put it behind us and hope for the best,” Mark Winchester says.

The Accident
“He was lucky to walk out of it alive,” says Linda Walker, referring to “the accident.” A driver rammed Winchester’s Suburban at high speed (50 mph, his father says) from behind us in the summer of 1998. The impact was severe enough to spin the Suburban around, and the other driver’s car caught on fire. Although dazed, Winchester dragged the man from the vehicle. Winchester needed only on-site care, although authorities say his vehicle nearly exploded.

Winchester, who attended UCLA the school year before, hasn’t been the same since, family and friends say. Neurological tests haven’t revealed any brain damage, Linda Winchester says, but “there definitely was a change in him after the accident. He did have the (auditory condition) before the accident. That’s why it’s so confusing to know cause and effect.” Danny says the accident did change his life. “Other than the fact it was a new experience…I got to see the dangers of driving on the road and how precious my life can be. I heard I was ‘this close’ to dying.”

He rarely drives anymore and prefers to walk great distances. A “party” frat boy at UCLA, he has given up the party scene. Soon after the accident, he began
reading his Bible everyday. “I think about it or read it every day,” he says.

A Spiritual Being
“He’s become very religious. Very spiritual. He’s very careful about materialistic things. Like, he doesn’t want a car or anything. Just the bare minimum,” says Jason Primes, best friend of Winchester and Doug Muraki, a close family friend and former pastor. “He had a conversion. He came to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, as evangelicals would say,” says Muraki. “Ninety percent of it’s helped him. Ten percent has hurt him. He’s taken quite literally some scripture.”

Muraki watched as Winchester became more introverted. Hoping to play basketball, he went from UCLA to USC for a term, then to American River Junior College in Sacramento, where he played for a term. “Now, he’ll carry a conversation,” Muraki says. “Two years ago, he’d just stare at you.”

“Still,” Muraki says, “there’s something in that personality, where we’d like to say, ‘Danny, come back to us. Get out of that cocoon.’” Mark Winchester has seen his son turn into an almost biblical character. “He has no sense of want, with a minimal level of trappings,” the father says. “He’s almost the opposite of egocentric, in that he’s almost trying to live a monastery lifestyle.”

WInchester has studied the Bible, taken Buddhism classes in school, and now attends a Mormon church. Teammate and friend Adam Merino has urged him to go to a Catholic church with him. But the “Church of Danny” serves him just fine. Winchester meditates every day, and for up to 45 minutes before each game. “Religion and meditation are one for me,” he says. “I look at walking around as one big meditation.”

Simple and Quirky
“It’s not Kool-Aid. No Gatorade, no beer. Just water – Aquafina. I hate to cramp,” says Danny. Almost everywhere he goes, Winchester carries his big red water jug with him. Safe, good-tasting water, he says, is the best way to hydrate.

Students have seen him meditating in the rain. Before games, he has been known to do yoga stretches for an hour under a hot shower in the locker room. “I just like the feel of water,” he says. He rarely dries himself.

He ofter walks around wearing only his practice jersey and shorts. He almost always wears his trademark parka. He has been know to give most of his clothes to the poor. For a psychology experiment, he spent one day shirtless, just to see how people reacted. Rather than sit and chat with teammates, he’ll find someone different everyday during lunch and sit next to him or her. “There’s a lot of people I feel like I’m called to talk with, to share life experiences with and not be alone,” he says.

Teammates have nicknamed him “Mystery House,” after a tourist attraction known as the Winchester (no relation) Mystery House in San Jose, California. Winchester also goes by the nicknames “DSW,”"android,”"The Rifleman,” and “3-D Man on a Mission.” The three D’s stand for drive, draw, and dish – basketball parlance – but the nickname also fits Danny’s multidimensional search for meaning.

Other Lewis & Clark students spot him jogging at 6 a.m., even on game days. He likes to stay active. He has hiked France, Spain, and Australia, and often goes hiking at home, with no destination in mind. He likes the solitude he gets outdoors. “Danny will often not utter a word in a conversation,” says his brother, Brandon. Winchester spent time on a farm in Montana as a youth and has some Amish in his background, according to his mother. “Maybe, deep down, he’s yearning to be Amish!” she says. “He is a naturally simple person.”

A Family Bond
“This is a wonderful, nurturing family. Linda is a sweet gal, an enabler. I hope we’re not seeing so much overprotection that it ends up hurting him,” says Muraki. Linda Winchester has been to several Lewis & Clark home games, and she frequently talks on the phone with her son. Muraki says, “She has a tendency not to push him, but to do everything for him. She’s afraid if he takes anymore hits to his self-esteem…she’s afraid of severe consequences.”

Perhaps Danny has always had to live up to the successes of others. His mother is an attorney. His father is one of Northern California’s leading cardiologists. And Brandon, 26, who Danny followed to UCLA, is a medical student at the University of Virginia. “We’re talking about a family where everything it does, it achieves,” Muraki says.

Danny’s specialty has always been basketball. But, after a stellar run at Sacramento’s Rio Americano High, where he was one of the most popular kids and was named “Dream Guy”, his hoops career hit the skids. He wanted to play at UCLA, but the Bruins didn’t offer a walk-on tryout. He didn’t make the USC team. He played for a semester at American River, then left. He looked to the Lord and isolated himself. His recent success at Lewis & Clark has helped him come out of his shell. “We’re astounded with what he’s done,” his mother says. “He’s never given up. His tenacity is amazing.”

Mark Winchester says his wife nearly came to tears when the couple received Danny’s latest report card. After five years of so-so grades and academic struggles, Danny pulled two B’s and one C. “For him to be independent and doing so well…it’s so encouraging,” his father says.

Basketball – His Domain
“The mechanics are so pure. Beautiful shooter. If I’ve seen him shoot 1,000 shots, his arch hasn’t changed an inch,” says Bob Gaillard, Lewis & Clark basketball coach. “Danny’s ability to shoot the basketball is second to none,” his brother, Brandon boasts. “But it’s not a gift. He has a shooting practice regimen that borders on obsessive. When he was little, he’d drive our mom nuts because he’d run around the house in his underwear, dribbling a basketball and shooting game-winning 3 pointers.”

Lewis & Clark teammate Kristofer Speier says Winchester has the best work ethic on the team. “He’s the last guy out there after practice,” Speier says. Danny’s father played for Dean Sempert at Lewis & Clark before transferring to Stanford. Danny prepared to play at L&C by working out in Sacramento with Al Biancani, the NBA Kings’ strength and conditioning coach. Biancani has trained him for six years. Danny also worked out last summer at the hoops camp sponsored by Kings guard Mike Bibby. All those repetitions have made Danny the deadeye shooter he is, Biancanni agrees. “I love coaching a person that dedicated,” says Gaillard, who recruited Danny out of high school. “Yes,” Danny says, smiling after hitting 6 of 10 shots from three point range during a recent game. “I’m pretty confident when I have an open shot.”

Seeking Truth and Trust
“You can’t help but like the kid. When you talk to him, you don’t quite know what he’s thinking. I won’t interview him on the radio. Sometimes he can’t process and respond, and it might turn into an embarrassing situation,” comments Bill Johnson, the basketball broadcaster for the L&C basketball team.

“I’m in a community now, Danny says, “seeing more people, more often. I’m on guard a lot, because I’m not trusting people. People talk and I’m careful about what I say. It’s the he-said, she-said thing. I don’t know if I’m scared of what people say about me, but I have a fear of not telling the truth and appearing fallible.”

To find trust and truth – these are Danny Winchester’s goals in life.