KANSAS CITY — When Linn native Michael Otto, 64, who lives in Kansas City, competed in high school, his coaches probably didn’t expect him to earn a gold medal in the Show-Me State Senior Games triathlon in his retirement.

“One of my coaches called me ‘fundamentally sound’ during the senior awards ceremony,” said Otto, who laughs about the description today. “I was a solid athlete.”

Until four years ago, Otto may have believed that assessment, but something changed, and his life was in need of attention, beginning a journey that reached a milestone on July 19 in Columbia. His determination carried him through a half-mile swim, a 15-mile bicycle ride, and a 3.1-mile run in the Show-Me State Games triathlon.

Four years ago, Otto was carrying roughly 50 extra pounds, had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and was watching three women in his family simultaneously battle breast cancer.

His knees were failing. Severe arthritis was taking a toll on his shoulder.

The 1981 LHS graduate now has two titanium knees and a replaced left shoulder, with doctors telling him his right shoulder eventually will need the same treatment.

So naturally, Otto decided to become a triathlete, and not simply to finish one, either. “I kept saying, ‘No, I want to compete,’” Otto said.

With a gold medal in the 60-64 age division, Otto qualified for the 2027 National Senior Games triathlon in Tulsa, Okla., pending final certification of the results.

For Otto, however, neither the medal nor even the national competition is really where the story began; his journey has a much more grounded starting point.

A ROUGH TIME

About four years ago, Otto’s wife, Lucille, was diagnosed with breast cancer. At roughly the same time, his daughter-in-law and sister-in-law also received breast cancer diagnoses.

Otto said his wife and sister-in-law are doing well, while his daughter-in-law continues to be monitored closely after dealing with a more severe form of the disease.

Watching all three women endure treatment changed his perspective. “If they can go through hell and back, because that’s what you go through on this breast cancer stuff, the least I can do is challenge myself in their name to do something,” Otto recalled, while understanding his own health was moving in the wrong direction.

Retirement had not removed the stress from his life, and his doctor warned him that changes were needed to address his blood-sugar issues.

For a man who had spent a career in education, beginning as a physical education teacher, the message was difficult to ignore. “It was an eye-opener about where I needed to change,” Otto said, knowing there was no quick fix.

He changed what he ate, began exercising again, and brought Lucille along on the journey as the couple changed their habits at home. “She was and continues to be very supportive of my changes,” Otto said.

He eventually got down to 188 pounds. Within six months, he said, his A1C had improved enough that his physician took him off metformin.

However, being healthier was only part of what Otto wanted.

“I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to do a triathlon,’” he recalled.

A COMPETITIVE BASE IN LINN

The son of Ralph and Angie Otto, Mike grew up here and graduated from Linn High School in 1981. His father died 11 years ago, while his mother now lives in Columbia.

Sports were a major part of Otto’s childhood, although opportunities were limited by both school and family finances. He played baseball until Linn eliminated the program, and football until that program was eliminated as well.

Basketball became his primary high school sport, while he also spent a year in cross country, and another in track.

Baseball, however, might have been his best sport. “I thought I was pretty good anyway,” Otto said.

When Linn no longer offered it, his father organized and coached a summer softball team that included several high school players.

Otto also considered playing summer baseball in Jefferson City, but the expense put it beyond the family’s means. “We just didn’t have the money to drive back and forth,” he said. “Finances came into play then.”

ACADEMIC SUCCESS BUILT A SOLID CAREER

His athletic interests eventually helped determine his career, after an academic awakening relatively late in high school.

Otto readily admits that he did not initially devote himself to schoolwork. “I didn’t try to be smart in high school until about my junior year,” he said. “It took me a little while to wise up.”

His mother commemorated the change when Otto made the principal’s honor roll as a junior. She clipped the recognition from the Unterrified Democrat and framed it.

For Otto, it became a turning point. “I said, ‘You know, I can do this,’” he recalled.

What he could not have known was where that realization would eventually take him.

After graduating from Linn, Otto attended Central Missouri State University (CMSU), now the University of Central Missouri, where he earned his degree in K-12 physical education in 1986.

He accepted a position that same year as an elementary physical education teacher in the Park Hill School District in Kansas City.

Sports remained central to his life. He coached while teaching and later coached basketball and baseball teams involving his own children.

Despite settling in Kansas City, there was a time when Otto imagined his professional journey eventually bringing him home. “My goal was to always come back to Linn and coach and teach,” he said, noting that former Linn superintendent Lonnie Thompson believed Otto belonged here as well. “He said, ‘Mike, come on back and teach here.’”

But he ultimately kept the path pointed toward Kansas City.

Otto met Lucille while they attended CMSU. She began her career as a biology and anatomy teacher in the North Kansas City School District, and the couple built their life of 40 years together in the Kansas City area.

Otto spent about seven years teaching PE before moving into school administration during the 1992-93 school year.

He later earned graduate degrees and principal certification from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and completed the doctoral coursework at the University of Missouri before stopping short of the dissertation.

Otto earned the 2001 National Distinguished Principal Award for Missouri, and represented the state in Washington, D.C. at a meeting with the other 49 award winners.

His career eventually took him from Park Hill to the St. Joseph School District, where he continued serving as an elementary principal until retiring in 2017. Along the way, he and Lucille raised two sons. Their oldest, Alex, is a licensed architect living in Shawnee, Kan., while their younger son, Andrew, is a dentist with a practice in Gladstone.

A BODY THAT REQUIRED REBUILDING

Making the decision to enter the triathlon was considerably easier than preparing his body to carry it out.

Severe arthritis had taken a toll over the years, and Otto underwent a series of major surgeries as he worked toward his goal, including having both knees overhauled. Then, about a year before the Show-Me State Games, his left shoulder was replaced. His right shoulder remains arthritic and likely will eventually require surgery as well.

The challenge became finding a way for Otto’s 64-year-old body to catch up with a mind that still remembered being active. “Mentally, you know, I was a competitor,” Otto said. “But I had to bring my knees and my shoulder around.”

He approached that part much as the longtime educator and former physical education teacher might have instructed someone else to do it: research first, then progress gradually.

Otto joined a national senior triathlon organization and began reading training information and accounts from athletes his own age.

He already owned a mountain bike. Swimming was readily available through a Park Hill aquatic facility, and he began getting into the pool.

He bought an Apple Watch and started tracking his activity. Walking gradually became more intense exercise as Otto applied principles he had learned years earlier, and he kept his doctors involved.

That mattered because his orthopedic physicians were particularly concerned about what a fall could do to his repaired joints.

“I said, ‘All right, I’m going to be careful,’” Otto said.

His original hope was to compete in the triathlon in 2025, but shoulder replacement surgery last July forced him to wait.

Even this year was hardly guaranteed; his surgeon remained uncertain that the shoulder would be ready.

Otto decided he would not be deterred. “I’m going to get ready,” he thought, and in June, roughly a month before the race, his doctor finally cleared him with one important piece of advice: “Mike, it looks great, but please don’t fall.”

BACK INTO COMPETITION

The Show-Me State Games triathlon brought athletes of different ages together, something Otto had to remind himself about almost immediately.

A 16-year-old or 28-year-old disappearing ahead of him was not his competition — his race was his own.

The first portion also presented a significant difference as he had trained in a pool, and the swim was held in Lake Phillips. “When you train in a pool, it’s nothing like swimming in a lake,” Otto said. “You can’t see the bottom in a lake.”

That particular detail bothered him less than it might have some competitors. “I grew up in Central Missouri,” Otto said with a laugh. “I kind of lived in ponds and lakes.”

Still, the swim proved to be the most difficult portion of the race. “I didn’t do so hot in the swim, but I got through it,” he said.

Lucille, watching her husband undertake the challenge that had consumed years of preparation, apparently knew the same thing, though she was nervous until Otto emerged from the water. “She told me then that she knew I would be all right,” Otto said.

He followed with a much stronger bicycle portion before finishing the run.

When it was over, he had completed exactly what he had set out to accomplish, but Otto is quick to put the gold medal into proper context.

Three competitors were listed in the 60-64 age group, he said, but the other two entered the duathlon rather than the triathlon. Otto was therefore the lone competitor in his age group to complete all three triathlon disciplines.

“By finishing my race, I became the gold-medal guy,” he said, making no attempt to turn that into something it was not.

In many ways, that distinction gets to the heart of what the event meant to him. His most important opponent had never been standing beside him on the starting line. “You’re competing against yourself,” Otto said. “That’s really what you’re doing.”

For Otto, the competition began four years ago against 245 pounds, diabetes, and arthritis. He also knew the surgeries would help him, but he fought the temptation to accept that age or circumstances had decided what he could still do.

THE NEXT GOAL

Otto hopes others learn from his transformation, though he is not suggesting everyone needs to become a triathlete; he is suggesting that people need something worth moving toward. “I just want to put myself in a position to be a good role model for others that may be going through similar stuff,” Otto said. “Weight, health, and family. That’s it — that’s the only reason I did it.”

The lesson applies to his own sons as well. “I want them to know you can beat any obstacle that you want,” Otto said. “You’ve got to have some goals. If you don’t have a goal you’re shooting for, it’s hard.”

The next goal is already on the calendar: the 2027 National Senior Games are scheduled for June 30 through July 11, with the triathlon set for the final day. The national triathlon will consist of a 400-meter swim, 20-kilometer bicycle ride, and 5K run.

That gives Otto almost another year to train, provided another surgery or injury does not interfere.

He knows the arthritis is not disappearing. Losing weight, eating properly and staying active can help manage it, but they cannot eliminate it.

“You’ve got to deal with what you’ve got,” Otto said. “It’s not going to kill me. It’s just painful. That’s all.”

With Tulsa now ahead of him, Otto has no intention of treating Columbia as the end of the journey. “I’m going to keep working,” he said.