June 18, 2004

Gwinnett, GA - Nick Medica, the 2002 Gwinnett boys tennis player of the year, isn't sure if he'll play competitive tennis again.

He's just glad he can see out of his left eye.

After a grueling freshman year at The Citadel, the Collins Hill graduate came home for what he hoped would be a relaxing summer. He figured he would play tennis, hang out with friends, work for his dad.

His dog, a Lab named Sydney, changed all that.

"I had just come home from school," Medica recalled. It was late May 2003. "I came in to go to bed, and my dog was having a really bad dream. She was shaking real bad. I bent over and touched her; she turned and snapped. Her top canine hit my left eye. Her bottom canine hit my lip.

"I was bleeding a lot," he added. "My mom patched it up."

Four weeks later, his retina detached.

"It was like having a line diagonally drawn across your eye," the 20-year-old said. "The top half was black, the bottom half all blurry." After surgery, he had to lie in bed at a 45-degree angle for 10 weeks.

"It just gets ridiculous, it's torture," he said. "All I could do was watch TV with my one good eye."

Finally allowed to move around, Medica took classes at Georgia Perimeter College so he wouldn't fall too far behind. Eventually he was cleared to swim, bike and run. But he couldn't play tennis or other sports.

He returned to The Citadel for the spring semester. Tennis remained a big part of his life, even though he couldn't participate.

"He came to practices, helped out the younger guys and was at every match supporting his teammates," coach Toby Simpson said. "He was as much a part of the team then as he was the year before."

Medica's workouts continued to consist of swimming, biking and running, the elements of a triathlon. Never one to set modest goals, he decided he would do the Ironman triathlon on June 27 in Idaho.

"I don't do things halfway," he said.

He'll swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, then run a marathon. He hopes it will take him less than 10 hours.

Medica began contemplating the Ironman during a pressure-packed freshman year, called the "knob" year at The Citadel. Upperclassmen shaved his head and ordered him around. He endured his first losing season as a tennis player.

The Ironman was an opportunity "to get away," he said. "You just want to start running and never stop."

The 4.0 student may do another Ironman in September in Wisconsin.

With his vision still a bit jumbled, Medica doesn't know if he'll be able to rejoin the tennis team.

"My depth perception is going to be off, reading the spins on returns," he said. "It will be an uphill battle."

Simpson is hopeful and projects Medica as his No. 3 singles player and part of one of the top doubles teams. If anyone can make it back, he said, Medica can.

"Nothing's too tough for him," the coach said.

Right now, Medica is just happy he can use his left eye, and glad to be pursuing an athletic goal.

Training for the Ironman "has been an experience unlike any other," he said. "Very few people will say in life that they've done an Ironman."