Rusty Nosser walks in Oxford, Miss. on Saturday, March 19, 2016.
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — Rusty Nosser is a competitive speed walker from Vicksburg whose story of overcoming adversity is an inspiration to many across the country.
Those up around 5 a.m. in Oxford have probably seen him. He’s dressed in neon, and for anyone driving around town, he’s the one dancing. Most people in town know him as, “The Walking Man.”
“Somebody like me that’s almost lost his life twice, you learn to get up every day and smell the roses,” Nosser, 64, told The Clarion Ledger. “Enjoy life. My journey is the in-between. My journey is the journey of what it took year after year, month after month in coming back. There’s one simple thing in life: you do not give up.”
Experiencing two near-death experiences in life is rare. It’s also hard to be a champion speed walker with multiple titles.
Nosser said his path through life wasn’t a straight path, despite what many would assume from the smile on his face dancing through town.
“I didn’t look for it,” he said. “It just came that way. Things kept falling in place after the downturn in life.”
A duck hunting accident in 1979 caused him to be blind in one eye. Despite seven attempts to fix it, doctors were unable to amend his lost sight.
“I was knocked off my feet at about thirty five-forty feet from a shotgun blast,” he said. “Me, my father, and my mother we flew around the country to try to restore it. It was in my retina. It did not work.”
Nosser said his mother, Ouida, gave him a piece of advice he would credit for his comeback in life.
“What are you going to do now?,” she said. “Are you going to beat this or is it going to beat you?”
“It became my motto in life,” he said.
In 1990, Nosser suffered from what he said was the worst pain of his life when doctors told him of a serious kidney infection. Internal bleeding caused him to be kept in ICU for several weeks. During his time there, he contracted staff infection.
“I really thought I was not going to make it out of there,” he said.
“People say you survive death once you can chalk it up to luck,” he said. “When you survive death twice, something else is going on.”
Nosser graduated from the University of Mississippi with a marketing major, and during his time there, he stayed physically active with his fraternity brothers playing basketball, swimming and jumping rope. After graduation, he returned to Vicksburg and worked in the supermarket business. Nosser returned to Oxford in 2004 to semi-retire.
After his divorce, Nosser picked up speed walking after his former brother-in-law told him he was “quick footed.”
“One thing led to another, and it kept mushrooming,” he said. “I realized that I had a knack for it.”
Speed walking soon became Nosser’s passion.
“You can’t let the downturns in life define you,” said Nosser. “You either get busy living or you get busy dying. I decided to get busy living.”
What started as his first race in Mooreville, North Carolina in 2011, turned into a passion for competing in as many races as he can. From Boston and New York, to Nashville, Dallas, and Eugene, Oregon, Nosser has been a part of them.
He’s reached over 50,000 miles of training and racing in total.
“I have always exercised, always kept in shape,” said Nosser. “I’ve never quit.”
For years, he said, many people would credit his success in part to his “God-given” talent. He says he just does what he does.
“At this point in the whole journey,” said Nosser, “You look back and say, ‘Maybe there is something to it.'”
Even in high school typing class, competition drove him.
Lynne Waterbury is a teacher at Clinton Christian Academy and a longtime friend of Nosser’s. She’s known him since first grade and they used to be typing partners.
They used to compete to see who was faster at typing.
“I realized he was going home and practicing sometimes,” said Waterbury. “We tried to beat each other, it was the best.”
Waterbury said his outlook on life and inspirational spirit continues to influence her today.
“He’s inspirational,” she said. “You work hard and you get what you work for. It’s like he can’t be beat.”
At 60 years old, Nosser won his most recent World Cup speed walking race in Boulder, Colorado in 2016.
Nosser has since written an autobiography, which Waterbury has helped type. He is also working on a film about his life that’ll be shown at the Oxford Film Festival.
“The journey’s not over with,” he said. “I don’t like to look back because I’m not going that way, I’m going this way. But you don’t forget. That’s what makes you go north. That’s what defines you: your strength going this way.”
As far as his training, he is currently preparing for the Olympic trials.
“It is a lifelong dream that I have always wanted to do, be an Olympic walker,” he said. “I have chased it all my life and here I am now. I don’t know if I’ll make it, I don’t know if I can do it. But I will give it a shot. I mean, what do I have to lose?”
