Byron Ward – ‘Not your typical athlete’

By Ceasar Maragni

Byron Ward was not your typical athlete.

Byron racing at Du Quoin.

For starters, he stands 5-feet-6 and has never weighed more than 130 pounds. Combine that with the fact that he was still competing in his chosen sport one year shy of AARP eligibility, and you begin to understand just how much he loved motorcycle racing.

When I took this photograph of the Sesser native racing in an American Motorcycle Association’s Championship race a dozen years ago, I had no idea that it would be his last competitive event.

What I have learned after touching bases with him recently is that he’s in an entirely different kind of race these days, and one with a whole lot more at stake than a trophy and bragging rights.

Byron in 5th grade at 10 years old.

Now 61 years old and his body banged up in part from decades of operating big bulldozers pushing piles of coal around at several different area mines for a living, Ward is in a race against aging and current medical technology in an attempt to stave off diabetes, sepsis and any other number of maladies that can come with failed kidneys.

He told me, “I’ve been on kidney dialysis for five years now, and in fact I just returned from Barnes Hospital in St. Louis two days ago where I had my annual checkup that qualifies me to remain on their list for a kidney transplant. So far, they have not been able to match me up with anyone.”

You won’t hear him seeking sympathy though, as he quickly steered the conversation back to his longtime love of racing, saying “I was 5 years old the first time I got on a motorcycle. It was a 60cc Yamaha mini-Enduro that I would jump on every chance I had. I tore up our yard with that thing every summer before I outgrew it!”

The writer and the racer.
Ceasar Maragni, left, pictured with Byron Ward in 2011.

He kept riding motorcycles right up and through his high school years, working his way up to bigger and faster machines. The last bike he raced was the 450cc Yamaha shown in my photo.

His first attempt at competitive racing came just after he graduated from Sesser-Valier High School in 1981. He said it was a Yamaha 250cc dirt bike that he purchased from Jim and Joyce Ragan’s Yamaha dealership in downtown Buckner “I was kind of crazy back then and had decided that the cycle racing life was for me.”

His love of racing didn’t come without cost however, as he says his race induced injuries have included a broken neck, fractured ribs, broken ankles, broken arms, broken shoulders and numerous other broken bones.

He eventually realized that it was time to hang it up, “While I intended to race as long as I could, there reached that point where I realized enough is enough – that’s it!”

My impression after our recent conversation, is that just like those four decades he pursued his passion of competitive motorcycle racing – even when he was old enough to be the father of most of those he was racing against – Ward seems to be battling kidney failure with the same grit and determination to cross the finish line a winner.

I hope and pray that he still has the attitude he had a decade ago when I asked him how he was able to stay competitive in a young man’s sport at nearly 50 years of age.

I vividly remember, he paused a moment, looked at me, and with a grin said to me, “Get out in front and stay there!”