Love has puzzled ancient philosophers and modern thinkers alike. So how did Doug and Susan find all the answers?

By Skye Isard & Michael Green
Gargoyle staff reporters
Posted Friday, Feb. 17, 2006, The OG, features

[Note: This article was originally published in the print Gargoyle on Nov. 3, 2003. We are republishing it on the occasion of Susan Mynatt's impending departure from Uni for a new job on campus.]

Doug and Susan Mynatt are in love. It's why they married. But as anyone experienced in matters of the heart would say, love is much more than just pheromones and physical attraction. There is certainly more to love — and to the Mynatts — than what meets the eye.

A bit of local color

Susan Mynatt is not a new face at Uni. Of course, she wedded long-time track and cross-country coach Doug Mynatt in the summer of 2002. But Susan has more than just married into the Uni family; in recent years she has become the assistant coach of the volleyball team and Uni's account technician.

Susan Lynn Osterbur was born Sept. 12, 1973. She was raised on a farm east of Champaign-Urbana and attended the St. Joseph school system until college.

Growing up, she had a love-hate relationship with the schools in St. Joseph. While she generally liked her friends, teachers, and coaches, Susan found the lack of privacy in a place where “everybody knew everything about everyone” frustrating.

At St. Joseph-Ogden High School, Susan dedicated much of her time to sports. She was an outfielder in softball for a year, participated in track for three seasons (she sprinted for two seasons and threw the shotput and discus during her third), and was the statistician for the boys basketball team throughout her high school career.

Her favorite sport, however, was volleyball. Susan recalls her time spent on the team with fondness, even when the experience was less than pleasant.

“We all disliked the coach my senior year,” she says. “She should not have been a coach for high school students, but [the experience] brought the team together.”

Susan's romantic interactions with the opposite sex during high school were limited to her date for senior prom. She remembers, “He was a tall, nice, cute guy, but I didn't know him very well.”

After her 1991 graduation, Susan attended the University of Illinois. She majored in finance at first, but switched to accountancy during her sophomore year.

In college, Susan had a steady boyfriend for two years named Charlie, who she believed was wonderful at the time. Charlie was a club DJ who majored in engineering.

“He could always get me into the clubs for free,” says Susan, adding: “I don't know what he's doing today. He's probably in Chicago now.”

One feature Susan discovered to be absolutely necessary in the men she dated was an interest in sports.

“I dated guys who weren't into sports … I couldn't understand them,” says Susan, who has always been an ardent sports fan.

Susan frequently exercised in the CRCE building (also known as WIMPE) to remain physically active, but otherwise did not participate in collegiate sports.

In 1995, she graduated from college and obtained an accounting position at Campus Stores (now part of the U of I Facilities & Services). She became Uni's assistant volleyball coach in 2000, and then transferred to Uni's account technician position in April 2002.

A quiet man migrates north

Douglas Olin Mynatt assumed a track and cross-country assistant coach position in 1995. A year later, he became the teams' head coach and a Uni PE teacher.

Whereas Susan is of local origins, Doug's life began on the banks of the Tennessee River. He was born on Aug. 8, 1963 (about 10 years before Susan), grew up in Knoxville, and became involved in running in eighth grade.

At the beginning of Doug's eighth-grade year, a coach told him that he had seen Doug running over the summer. This wasn't true. Nevertheless, Doug had outstanding fitness-test scores and enjoyed running. Therefore, he started to train.

Although there was never enough interest among his high school's student body to form a complete cross-country team, Mynatt and two friends formed their own running club and competed as individuals. Similarly, track and field was not an important sport at his high school.

Most of the track runners were football players who were trying to keep in shape in the offseason. Doug himself attempted football as a defensive back and wide receiver, but quit the team in the midst of his first season because the coach would not let him skip a Saturday practice to run a road race.

After graduating high school in 1981, Doug attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He was a walk-on for the track and cross-country teams his freshman year.

“I soon discovered I was way out of my league. … There were guys like Jim Ailshie who could run 1:49 [in 800 meter races],” says Doug, who trained for events between 800 and 1,500 meters (he could run 800 meters in about 1:56).

Doug “took off” his second semester in college, during which he worked as a basketball director at Knoxville (he scheduled games, managed officials, maintained the gym, etc.) as well as a track official.

“I basically lived in the gym,” Doug recalls.

After Doug graduated from the university, he began working the midnight to 4 a.m. shift for a trucking company. “I got strong while working for the company,” says Doug. “Sometimes after work I'd go run on a mountain trail.”

After being employed for a time, Doug enlisted in the Peace Corps. While in service, he went overseas to Mali (in West Africa) and worked as a natural resource management volunteer.

“I basically dug a lot of really big holes for really small trees,” he says.

Doug left the Corps early and resumed working for the trucking company.

However, Doug did not spend his youth oblivious to the opposite sex, although nothing much happened until he attended college.

“Girls were not at the forefront of my mind in high school,” he says, adding, “I had a lot of friends who were girls.”

His attitude was well exemplified by his senior prom night.

“Instead of going to prom, we ran on the golf course of the country club [where prom was]. We had a race the next day. We tried to get in, but they said we were too sweaty.”

But, of course, Doug didn't evade the feminine snare forever. His first girlfriend was named Jeannie. Doug had known her all his life (her mom taught him to play the organ and the piano), and they had begun to date on-and-off once they were in college. Unfortunately for Doug, it was not to be.

“Jeannie broke my heart. Around Christmas of 1989, I ran over towards her house from where I was staying. The distance between her house and mine was a 5K. While passing by, I noticed that her car was in the driveway. I thought, ‘Great. I'll get to see her and talk.' But then I saw it: On the back of the car hung a sign saying, ‘Just Married.' “

Doug's next romantic interest after Jeannie was a girl named Susan — a different woman than his present wife (he denies any particular attraction to the name). The relationship began in 1993, when she was only 18 and he was 28 (he denies any particular attraction to women 10 years younger than himself).

She had a twin named Amy, but Doug found himself more attracted to Susan — henceforth called Susan F. — for reasons unknown to himself. Susan F. was generally uninterested in sports, a quality that Doug endured for their relationship's three years of existence.

In fact, Doug was so greatly infatuated that he followed Susan F. to the University of Illinois, where she attended college. Over time, however, Doug came to find her unbearable; they broke up in 1996 over “differences” that Doug is unwilling to elaborate upon.

In the spring of 1995, a year before the end of his relationship with Susan F., Doug acquired an assistant coaching position for Uni's cross-country and track teams. He soon became the head coach for both sports.

Although both the track and cross-country teams have been successful in Doug's time, he finds coaching cross country more enjoyable.

“Being the track coach is essentially like coaching three teams … there's the sprinters and then both the boys and girls distance runners,” he says. “And then there are the field-event athletes, too.”

A Crystal-clear decision

The story of Susan and Doug is a shining example of the classic love story. They first noticed each other at Crystal Lake Pool during the summer of 1998, although they were at the time unaware of each other's attentive glances.

They immediately were attracted to specific features of one another — Susan admired Doug's level of fitness (she thought he was five years younger than he actually was) and his copy of ESPN The Magazine, whereas Doug found Susan's Larry Bird, Sylvester, and Tweety cup simply irresistible.
Doug would visit the pool every weekend in anticipation of spotting Susan sunning herself on a poolside chair.

He oftentimes tried to gather enough courage to speak with her, but would instead always succumb to his nervousness at the pool. Then destiny intervened.

School had begun and the pool season was coming to an end. Doug was walking across a campus parking lot en route to picking up a van for the subbie retreat. Susan was there. He recognized her as they passed each other. She recognized him as well, although he learned this fact much later.

“I knew it was fate,” says Doug. And so, he resolved that he would speak to her the next day (Saturday) at the pool. But as before, Doug's courage dissipated on the verge of the feat — he went home a failure.

Then on Sunday, he heard the song “Leap of Faith” by Delbert McClinton on the radio. The song is from the perspective of a man longing to communicate with the woman he is in love with. It was a sign.

“So I went to the pool Sunday,” says Doug. “The place was completely crowded. I walked around the pool a couple times. There was only one chair left open — guess who it was next to.”

He sat down next to Susan Lynn Osterbur, who would, nearly four years later, become Susan Lynn Mynatt.

They made small talk at first. Doug mentioned that he worked for the U of I, and they chatted about people they both happened to know (like several of the coaches at St. Joseph-Ogden High School).

But Doug's introductions were superfluous; Susan had already done her research on him. She knew his occupation and name. Doug believes she had been stalking him for quite some time, and Susan verifies the suspicion.

Five minutes after she returned to her apartment, Susan's phone rang. It was Doug, who happily informed Susan that there were 52 other people with the name Osterbur listed in the phone book.

Susan called him a “dork,” and they went out that night to the Courier Café in downtown Urbana. Flowers arrived for Susan from Doug the next day.

Doug had a business card. Several weeks prior, he had written a note on it and had planned to throw the slip of paper on her towel at the pool. He instead gave the card to Susan several days after their first date. Neither Susan nor Doug care to disclose the contents of the card to the public, but its implications were “immediate and life-changing.”

In three to four weeks, Doug and Susan were dating steadily. After a year, they moved into a house Susan had previously bought. And then the proposal came during the Christmas season of 2000.

The proposal could have been out of a chick flick. It occurred as they opened presents on Christmas Eve. Doug presented Susan with a large wrapped box containing two other smaller boxes, one inside the other.

They played a game: Susan had to correctly answer three trivia questions for each box she opened (the question subjects were Doug's family, Tennessee football, Krispy Kreme Donuts, and what Doug would do if he were invisible).

“I knew something was up. The week before, he had been more attentive and touchy-feely than usual,” says Susan. “By the time I had reached the smallest box I was already bawling.”

She won the game. Susan answered the first three questions without error and received a firewood chest and a smaller box. She then coasted through the next three questions, opened the second box, and discovered a new pair of winter boots containing the last package. She knew what waited inside.

Susan answered the last three questions while trying to suppress her sobs and tears.

“I had to test her,” says Doug. “I couldn't just marry a woman who didn't know anything about me.”

He claims that if she had answered a question incorrectly, he would have waited until the next Christmas to re-propose.

Eighteen months later, on June 15, 2002, Doug and Susan married in Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in St. Joseph. They honeymooned in Florida that July.

A future full of orange

Susan and Doug Mynatt are a blissful pair who live together like any normal sports-addicted couple. Their mutual love of sports — especially Tennessee football — helps strengthen the bond between them.

The future of their two-person family is still being decided, but they both hope it won't only contain two people forever.

“I would prefer a boy first,” says Susan. “Doug would have someone to play with. I want two kids — twins, so I can get it over with.”

Doug has no preference for gender, but jokes that he'd name his first son Kenneth James so that his nickname would be Kenny Jim.

They both feel the same way about their relationship's future.

“[My plan for the future] is to be married forever,” says Doug.

Susan adds a little team spirit into the picture: “I plan to be with Doug and have our kids wear Tennessee gear all the time.”