SAN MARCOS — Charles Austin, dressed in workout shorts and a T-shirt from his business, So High Sports and Fitness, looks like he still could high jump with the world's best.
But it has been 17 years since he set the U.S record in the event and 12 since he won an Olympic gold medal. His teenage son works at the facility, tucked on a cul-de-sac on the south side of San Marcos.
By all indications, the 40-year-old Austin has made the transition from elite athlete to successful businessman with his three fitness centers. Besides the training center on the edge of San Marcos, which opened in March, he also has a facility in San Antonio and one in downtown San Marcos, where he went to college.
“It's been going great, and I've been having a blast with it,” he said of the business, which he started seven years ago in a storefront in San Marcos.
“I decided to open my performance center because now I really want to work with professional athletes, and they can come in instead of me traveling to them and trying to plan workouts.”
His new center in San Marcos includes a full-sized basketball/volleyball court, weight machines and indoor training facilities for track and field, plus a tennis court and areas for working on soccer and track outdoors.
“I designed the place so that no matter what you want to do, you can come here and make it happen,” he said.
Athletes from David Robinson to Olympic hopeful Destinee Hooker have trained with Austin, learning from the techniques he developed while serving as his own high-jump coach. And Austin has kept his staff of trainers small, since they have to understand his philosophy before he allows them to work with clients.
“It's proven, and not just with myself,” he said. “And I've been blessed that everyone I've worked with has gotten tremendous improvements.”
Hooker swears by his methods.
“I feel like I've gotten 10 times better,” she said. “My speed is better, my takeoff is better. I just love it.”
But it's not just elite athletes who have benefited.
Mark Mullins, whose daughter Georgia has worked with Austin for two years, said the training sessions have been worthwhile both mentally and physically. Georgia started training in track and now concentrates on soccer.
“He has become a good friend and a true mentor for my daughter,” said Mullins, whose daughter will be a junior at Reagan. “He makes each training session different and my daughter will not miss a scheduled training.
“Charles can put you through a workout in a 4-foot square area and you will be gasping for air in 10 minutes.”
Austin is aware that there will be challenges to his business success; there are dozens of health and fitness centers in the Interstate 35 corridor, many of them affiliated with national chains.
But he said the difference with his is simple: None of them are run by a world-class athlete and benefit from the methods and ideas he developed along the way to elite status.
“I pass that information down to my clients,” he said. “That's the difference.”
Bender's Road Back....
By Ben Kopelman Posted: 11:29 AM, December 16, 2009
In a report in the NY Post, Marc Berman offers up some interesting information about how the newest Knick has crawled his way back into NBA shape:
“The 7-foot Bender, in his unorthodox comeback attempt, has used 1996 Olympic gold medalist Charles Austin as his coach. Austin also had wrecked his knee and returned to win the gold in Atlanta in the high jump.
“Bender worked out with Austin for the last year in San Marcos, Tex. Austin will come to New York to continue working with Bender, who played his last NBA game in November of 2005 before a chronic injury left him with no cartilage in his knee.
“He had the same situation where he was told he couldn’t play and he came back and won the high-jump medal in 1996,” Bender said of Austin. “We did the same type of training, more of a track-and-field approach. He’s the only person who has that type of knowledge.”
I think we all agree that Bender is a low-risk, high-reward type guy, but the Knicks have played that card a handful of times over the last season and a half, and so far it hasn’t really played out to the teams benefit. That said, this report interests me because it adds a level of credibility to Bender’s comeback. He isn’t sitting around, bored, self-deluded into thinking he can just lace up and play again. The fact that he has been working with a guy who learned how to overcome a similar injury and go on and win a gold medal in the high jump (you need your knees to jump, right?) makes me hopeful for what Bender might be able to do this time around.
If Austin has helped him as much as he seems to have been able to help himself, this could be one low-risk signing that truly pays off.
Bender could be signing of year
By MARC BERMAN Posted: 2:48 AM, December 20, 2009
Jonathan Bender admits Friday night was "a dream come true" -- his first game in four years the stuff of storybooks.
But the 7-foot Bender, who changed the game the moment he stepped onto the Garden court late in the first quarter, isn't satisfied. Maybe -- just maybe -- Knicks president Donnie Walsh has made the signing of the year.
"It was great, but I'm still trying to keep up with these guys," Bender said after yesterday's practice. "My first goal was getting here. The second goal is sustaining it."
The morning-after the Knicks' big Bender, Mike D'Antoni was in as good of a mood as he's been in since Camp Saratoga, even if he did have to address the freshest controversy: Is Bender's rise leading to Eddy Curry's fall?
AP
REBORN KNICK: Jonathan Bender, the fifth-overall pick in the 1999 draft, was a bust for Donnie Walsh's Pacers. Now, they're together again with the Knicks.
"I was hoping, we were all hoping, and we saw a glimpse of what he can do," D'Antoni said of Bender. "He lost his legs a bit [in the second half] but a lot of potential is there for sure."
Walsh failed to upgrade the roster during summer free agency, as he protected the Knicks' 2010 cap space. But his out-of-the-blue Bender signing a week ago could make up for it.
That's how good Bender looked for a guy who hadn't played an NBA game since November, 2005, because of a bone-on-bone knee condition. Bender said he has to do special stretching exercises the day after games because of the condition.
On his first possession, with the Clippers on a 16-0 run, Bender snaked in from the perimeter on a drive and made a nifty layup over Marcus Camby.
"I didn't know what to expect," said Walsh who, while with the Pacers, made a trade for Bender soon after he was drafted with the fifth overall pick by the Raptors out of high school as an 18-year-old. "After that I said, 'OK, that's what I remember.' "On his next touch, Bender drilled a left-corner 3-pointer. He also made an emphatic block of a Baron Davis' floater -- the cleanest block by a Knick this season. And he committed a flagrant foul on Eric Gordon, battering him to the floor as Gordon drove for a layup. The tough display was a rarity for a Knicks big man.
Bender said that would not have been a flagrant foul four years ago.
"Definitely not," Bender said. "When Gordon goes to the rack, he bumps into you. I just put my arm out."
Curry did not play Friday after three ineffective games since returning from his latest knee injury.
D'Antoni said because Bender is a wing player, it doesn't necessarily mean the end of Curry. But indications are that it is for now, and Curry sounded worried.
"I'm happy we won," Curry said. "Nobody is ever happy not playing. I've stopped trying to figure out what they're thinking. I've just got to roll with the punches. You always want to play. I'll continue to try to be ready if my name is ever called."
The problem isn't as much Curry as it is his style, which disturbs his teammates, who are overzealous in trying to get him the ball in the post. D'Antoni may want to hone in on featuring Bender off the bench.
Curry's 3:32 stint in Chicago on Thursday, when the Knicks' lead went from 17 points to four points, has made D'Antoni wonder it's worth showcasing him at this juncture of the season, when they're fighting to be in a playoff race. Bender's production also buries Nate Robinson further into oblivion.
"It's not him, but the team has trouble switching gears," D'Antoni said. "I'm not there yet. I don't want to say that, because that would be the headline."
Jonathan Bender's comeback among many shockers in Knicks' win over Bobcats
Sipkin/News
A shocking comeback from Knicks forward Jonathan Bender drives team to a 98-94 win over the Bobcats.
It's difficult to know what was most startling about the Knicks' 98-94 win over the Bobcats Sunday night at the Garden:
The fact that the last shot taken by Larry Brown's team was fired up by Acie Law, who had just taken off his warmups and entered the game for the first time all night.
Or the fact that Danilo Gallinari blocked Law's drive to the basket.
Either way, the Knicks are a .500 team in their last 14 games, 6-3 since Nate Robinson was benched and 2-0 with Jonathan Bender getting playing time.
"The fact that he's back is amazing, it's really amazing," said Ron Artest, who played five seasons with Bender in Indiana, late Saturday night as the Lakers were leaving the Meadowlands. "When he left Indiana, I thought he was done. I never thought he'd be able to come back."
Maybe Eddy Curry should consider taking three years off and then making a comeback.
That approach has worked well for Bender, the former high school phenom whom Donnie Walsh made a first-round pick in Indiana and who was said to be Larry Bird's greatest nemesis in games of H-O-R-S-E before seeing his NBA career ruined by knee injuries.
Sunday night, Bender scored 11 points in 14:42 and basically was the entire Knicks offense for the first five minutes of the fourth quarter.
"I'm like Ron, I never thought he'd be back, either," said Charlotte's Stephen Jackson, who played two seasons in Indiana with Bender. "It's unbelievable to see him out there."
It was just as surprising that Charlotte was even in this game up until the final six-tenths of a second. Brown didn't have Jackson, his No.1 scorer, for the final 18 minutes after he injured his back. Afterward, he couldn't even bend down to pick up a towel.
Nor did Brown have Knick killer Gerald Wallace, who took an elbow from his teammate, Nazr Mohammed, Saturday night in the Bobcats' loss to Utah. Charlotte's team doctor kept him out for precautionary reasons when he reported beforehand that he had a headache.
As a result, the Bobcats just didn't have enough firepower and wound up with Law, playing in only his second game for Charlotte since coming in a trade with Jackson from Golden State, attempting the tying shot with 4.9 seconds left.
Sometimes, Gallinari never gets close enough to a backboard to get a rebound. He had none Sunday night in almost 36 minutes. But his block of Law's layup was his 21st in 27 games.
"(Law) did the right thing," Brown said. "He got it to the rim."
But unlike Bender's shots, it didn't find the basket. Bender laughed when hearing how Artest and Jackson thought they had seen the last of him
"I should have bet them that I'd be back," he said.
He'd have made a killing.
"My biggest concerns are adjusting to the speed of the game and being consistent every night," he said. "I mean, even just the plane travel is going to be an adjustment I have to deal with, at this point."
For Bender, it's all positive compared to Robinson, whose agent has asked that he be traded rather than continue to sit in Mike D'Antoni's doghouse.
"Nate's got talent, we all know that," Walsh said. "He can help a team win. He can help any team, but only if he plays within the parameter of what the team is trying to do. And I don't coach the team. So I don't know where he is, outside of that parameter."
He's way outside, judging from D'Antoni's rotations since the first of the month. You can't argue with the results.
Robinson knew this season could play out this way when he signed his one-year deal last summer. He and D'Antoni were at odds last season. Then in late June, the Knicks made a trade on draft night for Toney Douglas. In July, they talked to almost every free-agent point guard known to man, including Jason Kidd, Jason Williams, Ramon Sessions and Jamaal Tinsley, as Robinson had few, if any serious offers.
"We were all over the place," D'Antoni said. "At a certain point, (Robinson) was the best one" to sign.
The Knicks don't have to accommodate Robinson. There aren't a lot of teams looking for a reserve guard who makes $4million. Plus, they can't mess with their master plan and take back a player with a contract beyond this season.
Perhaps Robinson will just have to sit back and enjoy the view, as much as it kills him.
Although a Texas A&M recruiter beat his rival from the Longhorns by 48 hours in offering Hays' slugging catcher a baseball scholarship, anyone that's waltzed past Nick DeSantiago's room over the past decade knew the Aggies had no chance.
If the posters of past Longhorn greats and banners marking Texas' national championships in 2002 and 2005 didn't give it away, the burnt orange carpet certainly would have.
DeSantiago was born to be a Longhorn.
That's why it took him about 10 minutes to accept Texas third base coach and top recruiter Tommy Harmon's offer after he visited Hays High last Monday.
"I had to talk it over with my parents, but it didn't take long for me to accept," DeSantiago said. "I visited both Texas and A&M and both of them wanted me pretty bad. A&M made me an offer Saturday, but I definitely wanted to go to Texas all along so it was an easy decision. They are right down the road from here and it has really been a goal of mine all my life."
DeSantiago went out and celebrated his big news for the 18-1 Rebels, who are ranked No. 6 in the state in Class 4A, by cranking a prodigious home run over the blue monster in center field Friday night against Lehman to break out of a two-week hitting slump.
"I think we saw Nick's bat come back alive tonight," said Hays senior pitcher/third baseman Jon Gonzales. "He's been stressing a little bit at the plate, but now that everything's settled on where he's going to school, he can relax and enjoy the rest of his senior year."
The decision DeSantiago made over the summer to not play football his senior season despite being the team's leading returning rusher and scorer now seems to be in the distant past.
His play behind the plate as a defensive catcher improved immensely as a result of the extra work DeSantiago was able to put in during the fall select baseball season and in workouts and training sessions. Now the 6-foot, 210-pound left-hander is a near-perfect mold of what teams at the next level are looking for at the position.
He worked out with both Ryan Hubele, one of the all-time best catchers in Longhorn history and personal trainer and former Olympic high jump champion Charles Austin, and took thousands of batting cage cuts with the assistance of his father Tony.
"It was a tough decision at the time not to play football, but it worked out for the best," DeSantiago said. "I'm happy with my decision because my future is in baseball."
Hays head baseball coach Doug Ragsdale said it's hard not to pull for a kid like DeSantiago.
"Nick is a fun guy to be around," Ragsdale said. "He's always been a great guy to have on this team. He's full of life, and there's not a malicious bone in his body. We're all very happy for him to be able to fulfill a lifelong dream."
Tony DeSantiago said the reality of his son signing with the University of Texas is finally starting to sink in.
"At first you have to pinch yourself because it's UT," Tony said. "You think, wow all the hard work has paid off."
Now the only decision about his baseball future Nick DeSantiago will have to make will come in early June.
If he's drafted by a major league team, a high possibility taking into account the numerous scouts that have followed the Rebels this season, DeSantiago may have to decide whether to take a big signing bonus instead of the burnt orange and white Longhorn uniform he's now scheduled to wear in the fall.
"It would have to be quite a bit of money to pull me away from Texas," DeSantiago said. "I know I have a good future set for me either way, so I'm just going to wait and see what happens. I'm going to try not to worry about that right now and just play baseball and enjoy my last couple of months of high school."
“The 7-foot Bender, in his unorthodox comeback attempt, has used 1996 Olympic gold medalist Charles Austin as his coach. Austin also had wrecked his knee and returned to win the gold in Atlanta in the high jump.
REBORN KNICK: Jonathan Bender, the fifth-overall pick in the 1999 draft, was a bust for Donnie Walsh's Pacers. Now, they're together again with the Knicks. 
It's difficult to know what was most startling about the 
Although a Texas A&M recruiter beat his rival from the Longhorns by 48 hours in offering Hays' slugging catcher a baseball scholarship, anyone that's waltzed past Nick DeSantiago's room over the past decade knew the Aggies had no chance.