January 22, 2018

By Mark Janssen

I see you sittin' there all alone
Crying your eyes out
While everything's going wrong
You know there's gonna be
A whole lot of trouble in your life
Listen to me, get up off your knees
'Cause only the strong survive

Only the strong survive
Only the strong survive

 

The soulful lyrics are those sung by Jerry Butler in 1969. There’s an excellent chance that Only Cathemer has never heard of Mr. Butler, or for that matter, the “Only The Strong Survive” lyrics. It’s a package of wordage that would make tears stream down her face with a faint whisper of, “That’s my life.”

Only Cathemer is a senior on the Manhattan Christian College basketball team. Her life … Only’s life … has been one of sittin’ alone. Only’s life has been one of crying her eyes out. Only’s life has been one of going wrong.

But Only’s life has also been one of being strong and surviving.

To the clothes she was wearing on that day as a seventh grader, she vividly remembers her teacher pulling her out of a class and, “… I was just being a pain, but that teacher grabbed me by the shirt, yanked me outside, pushed me against the wall, put a finger in my face and said, ‘If you don’t change, you’re going to end up like our parents. Your dad’s in prison and your mom’s a crack head.’”

With her brown eyes fading back to the moment, Cathemer continued, “I started crying … crying hard. But I looked in the mirror and knew she was right. I was only 12 years old, but this was up to me. It would be hard because I would be alone.”

Only, whose name came from a road sign, according to her mother, but also with a great grandmother on her father’s side named Only, was certainly an imperfect child raised by dysfunctional parents to the highest degree.

 “I was into smoking marijuana, and I took things from stores that I felt I needed,” she said. “I didn’t know God, and I had a home life that no one should have to go through.”

Immature shenanigans would have Cathemer being suspended from the Florence, Ariz., school system for a five-year period. She went to an alternative school, but was kicked out: “I just floated around for five years. I’d wait for my friends to get out of school, and then go get in trouble with them.”

While it was a “blurry period” of Cathemer’s life, her memories remain vivid.

“I remember walking home and telling my friend that if I get hit again, I’m leaving home,” Cathemer recalled. “My mother’s boyfriend hit me with an extension cord several times and I left.”

With the help of her friend, she stole her mother’s car. With all the nickels, dimes and quarters she could stuff in her purse, she disappeared for five-days before being caught.

But it was also during one of the worst of times, God came to Only’s rescue with a hug.

Opening the door to her modest home-made bedroom, she found it trashed by her mother,

“I totally lost it. I was 16 and I was lost,” Cathemer reflected. “I finally just screamed, ‘If there is a God, show me!’ All of a sudden, I felt this tight hug. No one was in the room, but someone was hugging me giving me comfort.”

If that wasn’t convincing enough, Cathemer collected herself and headed to a new arcade to apply for a job.

“I stepped out my door and there was the owner of the arcade putting up Help Wanted posters right outside my house,” Cathemer said. “I offered to help put posters up and she told me to come by the arcade the next day. That was my first knowledge that God can really work for you and with you.”

Only wasn’t home free by any means. Her halo became catawampus at times, and even occasionally fell off during a life of zero guidance and being a troubled teen on her own with a most checkered past.

After all, her father was in prison because of wrong doings with a female and a shooting incident that left one paralyzed. And, her mother was neck-deep into drugs.

But as a 17-year-old freshman, at least she was back in school with the substantial caring help from Superintendent Dr. Amy Fuller, plus teachers like Patricia Edgemon, and others, And, she even found a teamwork-type therapy being on an organized basketball team for the first time in her life.

With the help of on-line courses, Cathemer graduated from Florence High School in three years. Her grades were good “… when I wanted them to be,” and she found a passion throwing a brown leather ball through an orange iron hoop.

With just days before her graduation, Cathemer was again questioning God about her future. Silently, she was begging for guidance.

“I remember waking up one Monday and saying, ‘Something good is going to happen’.”

But nothing good happened.

Tuesday was the same. And Wednesday. And Thursday, as well.

On Friday, Cathemer got one of those dreaded calls to the principal’s office: “I automatic thought, ‘Oh crap, what have I done now?’ It had become automatic to think I was in trouble.”

This time it was a social worker wanting to know where she had been the last four years.

Cathemer tracked her path of being in an abusive home, moving to foster care, then to a group home, and on and on.

And then, through the social worker, God spoke to Only Cathemer.

 “She said, ‘Only, you were one of 66 cases lost by the state of Arizona. We lost your case.’ Then she said, ‘You can go to college and we will pay your way and whatever you need to get there.’

“I said, ‘Is this a joke?’”

The social worker promised that it was no joke. Through strength and survival, Only Cathemer was going to college!

Cathemer actually doesn’t remember all the details, but a school in Rochester, Minn., called Crossroad Christian College wanted her to come north to play basketball.

Laughing at the memory, Cathemer said, “I remember my high school coach saying, ‘What? Do you know this is a Christian school?’ I didn’t, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t know what being a Christian really meant, and I figured they didn’t need to know.”

Chuckling again, she said, “I remember him saying, ‘You’re anything but a Christian. Call me when you get kicked out and need help.”

For two years life was as good as it gets for Cathemer. She was doing well in school, the star of a two-year winless basketball team, a residence assistant in the dorm, and coaching a little girls’ basketball team.

“I was baptized shortly after I got there and I had everything in life that I wanted,” Cathemer said. “I was starting to understand God. l was happy.”

Two days before her junior year was to start, Cathemer was working on campus cleaning dorm rooms for the next class of freshmen when …. “I was told the school was closing. I was working on campus and had no idea. I just said, ‘WHAT am I going to do now?’”

Multiple coaches were calling Crossroads about players wanting to transfer with Cathemer at the top of that list. One of the calls came from MCC’s Sarah Wenger, who had seen her play the year before.

“She was the best player on her team and showed a drive to improve,” reflected Wenger.

But the Thunder coach had one strike against her. She was a female.

“I didn’t like the idea of being coached by a woman,” Cathemer said. “That had to do with how my mom treated me. I didn’t trust women.”

While admitting that she and her coach have “butted heads at times; at times we’re too much alike,” a positive relationship has been reached by coach and the 5-foot-7 perimeter talent, who is averaging six points, five rebounds and 1.7 steals for the Lady Thunder.

On and off the floor, Wenger said, “Only has grown in her ability to see and trust her teammates as assets.”

Helped with loving Christian-like teammates, Cathemer admits that her past is in the past, but also not forgotten.

“When I’m alone I still cry about my life,” she said. “It’s been hard.”

Her father has been in prison, released, but now back behind bars on meth charges. She has no desire to see him at this time.

With pride, she says her mother has become a Christian and is 19 months drug free.

“We talk some and I told her I’ve forgiven her for what she did to me. I mean that, but I have no desire ever to go back to Florence … ever,” said Cathemer of her home located an hour southeast of Phoenix. “There’s nothing in Florence that is good for me, and so far, my mother will not come here.”

A trust in God has given Only strength, but her guard remains on alert.  Because of her past, she says, “I find it tough to be too comfortable.”

With an Ethics and Management major at MCC, she hopes to start a non-profit organization on a Sioux Indian Reservation in Fort Thompson, S.D.

“I’d like to help young girls,” she said. “That is an ability that God has given me. I want to make young girls stronger and help them grow.”

Pausing, she added with focused eyes, “Whatever God has planed for me, I’ll be okay.”

She added, “Not one ounce of me is concerned about returning to my old ways. I’ve come way too far. I’ve worked way too hard.”

            Only … the strong survive.

            Only … the strong survive.