Fighting Spirit

The last time Matt Beneda passed out, his heart stopped.

They’re sure of that because he was connected to a machine that monitors his heart.

Moments before, Beneda was on top of the world. He’d passed all the doctor’s tests without any irregular findings. The sluggishness he’d felt for the previous few months had disappeared.

A scrappy all-league high school soccer player who had inexplicably fainted five times in five years, Beneda felt healthy for the first time in months. He had recently received word that he’d been accepted to the U.S. Military Academy, fulfilling a longtime dream.

So after receiving word that the final tests that day showed nothing abnormal, Beneda, exhilarated by the news, rose from the hospital bed preparing to detach himself from the heart machine.

That’s when he crashed to the floor, the machine momentarily showing a flat line.

The future he had mapped out--attending West Point, playing soccer, joining the Army--crashed with him.

Doctors diagnosed Vasovagal Syncope, a condition that causes fainting when an inappropriate reflex in the nervous system triggers a slowed heart rate and loss of blood to the brain. The latest medical prescription called for a pacemaker to regulate the heart rate. West Point rescinded its appointment.

Though his condition has thwarted his dream of attending West Point, Beneda has not let it keep him off the soccer field. Despite the concerns of his parents and at least one doctor, Beneda has played the last three years.

His competitive career will likely end today when Beneda, who turned 21 Friday, plays for Cypress College in the Chargers’ season finale against Fullerton. But Beneda takes pride that he didn’t give up.

“You have a choice whether to fold,” he said. “My competitive nature won’t let me. Whatever it is, I just keep coming back. Whatever I can do to not be beat, I’ll do. That includes life, that includes sports.”

That Beneda has come back to complete his soccer career shouldn’t come as a surprise. He’s been a fighter all his life.

Beneda was abandoned as an infant, and details are sketchy about his parents. What little is known isn’t good.

He was born to a young couple in Kansas. He was told that when he was about six months old, his father kidnapped him and drove him to Los Angeles and left him in a locked car on the side of a freeway. A highway patrol officer discovered him.

A judge deemed Beneda’s father unfit for parenting and his mother, contacted in Kansas, declined to retain custody. Beneda bounced between foster homes and orphanages until Henry and Marcia Beneda adopted him at age four.

As a child, he had a stuttering problem and had an aggressive personality. He’s been in and out of therapy, and has somehow managed to turn into a mature young adult.

“A lot of people say I should be a drug addict somewhere,” Beneda said. “But I’m just the kind of guy that you might be able to beat me down, but I’ll always keep coming back.”

As he has since the fainting began at age 12.

Each fainting episode, Marcia Beneda remembers, could be traced to some unusual circumstance. A couple of times, he had been playing in grueling soccer games and became dehydrated. Another time he was at the beach and got a bad sunburn. Once it happened after a cross-country airplane trip.

After each episode, the Benedas sought medical attention. Each time, doctors found nothing.

“They did an enormous amount of tests,” said Marcia Beneda, who is a nurse. “But he was always given a clean bill of health.”

At least not until August 1997. Beneda was ill for a few months and thought he had mononucleosis. He tried to fight through the sluggishness, but shortly after returning from a soccer tournament in New York, he passed out.

His doctors responded aggressively, running seemingly every test imaginable. The final test was an electrocardiogram, which monitors the heart.

A doctor informed Beneda, cathodes still attached, that the test looked fine and he was clear to leave. That’s when Beneda tried to get up.

“He straight-lined,” Marcia Beneda said. “It didn’t last very long, but it was the only time we had the heart pattern recorded during an actual fainting.”

The nervous system reflex involved with Vasovagal Syncope is not easily detected, according to the Benedas, nor can it be treated. Its effect--a slowed heart rate--can be.

Beneda’s pacemaker was implanted three months later to keep his heart rate regular.

Coming from a military family, the toughest thing for Beneda to deal with was his broken dream of attending West Point.

“I went through a depression,” Beneda said. “I was upset but then kind of helpless in that situation. I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to do what I was made for.”

With his dream of West Point shattered, Beneda began to wonder about soccer. He planned on playing at West Point, but a more pressing concern was his senior season at Brethren Christian High.

He went to his doctor and pleaded for permission to play. Told no, he got a second opinion and clearance to play as long as he wore a vest to protect the pacemaker from contact.

“I think he played the first game with the pads and hasn’t worn it since,” Henry Beneda said. “But he was persistent and convinced the doctor that it would be OK to play.”

His tenacity shows on the soccer field. Beneda, a defender for Cypress, plays full-throttle. He pulls, pushes, scratches and does whatever it takes to keep potential goal-scorers away from his net.

“I only know two speeds,” Beneda said. “Zero miles an hour and 100 miles an hour.”

It’s surprising, then, that Beneda does not regret his soccer career coming to a close. A one-time club team all-star and World Scholar Games participant, Beneda has chosen to give up playing his favorite sport after today. He will, however, stay close to it. Beneda, who coached last year at Brethren Christian, will be a high school official during the upcoming prep season.

He still entertains the idea of someday getting into the Army, but says the pacemaker might be a sign that a military career wasn’t meant to be. He is considering joining the ROTC program at Cal State Fullerton, but also thinks about other risky ventures such as a career in law enforcement or trying to become a CIA agent. That is, if he doesn’t go to law school or launch a career in politics.

Henry Beneda believes that when Matt’s plan to attend West Point suddenly changed--essentially changing the plan for the rest of his life--Matt became confused. Henry also thinks that at the same time, Matt reached a point when he started to wonder about his birth family, adding to the confusion.

“It’s kind of a piece of his life that’s missing,” Henry Beneda said. “He hasn’t expressed a lot of interest in finding them, but I think it is really important to find that missing piece. It would help fill a gap there.”

But Matt Beneda said he isn’t interested in searching for the people who abandoned him.

“I’m not too focused on finding my parents,” he said. “For a lot of reasons.”

For now, his focus is on what he wants to do next.

“Maybe I need to pace myself a little bit,” Beneda said. “That’s what the pacemaker is for, God is telling me to slow down a little bit. I always thought I could do whatever I want and that I was invincible. I still think I can do whatever I want, but I’m not invincible. That’s what the pacemaker is showing me.”