By Scott Brinton
In the months after DePass's death, the Mepham squad rallied, finishing 18-0 in dual meets. But what the team wanted most was the Class A Nassau County Championship in November, a goal that DePass had on his mind as he entered the last summer of his short life. In November, Mepham delivered, grabbing the squad's sixth county title in seven years. It was a bittersweet victory.
Lee Krinsky, a lifelong Bellmore resident, was a good friend and teammate of DePass's. He took his friend's death harder than most. He had trouble focusing throughout the fall, and although he began the season on Mepham's varsity cross-country squad, he dropped out of the top seven runners and onto the junior-varsity squad toward the end of the season.
To this day, Krinsky, 30, feels the psychic wounds of losing a friend to a terrible disease at such a young age. "It was hard," Krinsky said recently. "I didn't really understand it. We were all crushed. The team was like a family."
Five hundred people attended a memorial service for DePass at Mepham High School. "I don't remember the details," Krinsky said. "We did a lap for him. I had never been to a real funeral."
For years, Krinsky internalized his pain. At various times he tried scratching out a screenplay about his experiences on the team that difficult year, to no avail. At 23, he wrote his first draft of a book and tried to publish it, but got nowhere. So he shelved the project.
Two years ago, Krinsky began crafting his first young-adult novel, "The Longest Fall," a fictionalized version of the events of the fall of 1996, which closely follows his experiences, though not entirely. (The main character's friend dies in a car crash, and names of people and towns are changed, although the setting is Long Island.)
This time, Krinsky self-published the book through iUniverse Inc. and has been selling it on Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com, as well as at venues like the Long Island Marathon. He expects that he will need a year to recoup his initial investment of $3,000 to publish the book and market it on the Web. A portion of sales will go to the Troy DePass Scholarship Fund at Mepham, which Krinsky helps oversee.
For years, Krinsky, a graduate of SUNY Albany, was an on-again, off-again runner who did not compete seriously after high school until 2004, when he ran the Long Island Marathon. He trained three to four days a week for four months and finished the marathon, despite injuring his knees. But the experience inspired him to pursue other life goals, including completing a novel. He is now working on his second, about his other great passion, surfing. And he runs his own test preparation agency in Merrick, Dynamic Tutoring.
At its heart, Krinsky said, "The Longest Fall" is a PG-13 novel about growing up and finding one's place in an often perilous world. And surely, it was a catharsis for him.
"I think there's an inspirational message in this book," Krinsky said. "Cross-country is a sport anyone can be good at. You can do a lot more than you think you can do with hard work and perseverance."
For more, check out www.leekrinsky.com.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
