From self-harming to suicide attempts to cross country medalist: A high school senior's painful journey

Akron Garfield athlete Keanu Norr doesn't run just to escape the trauma he's experienced — he runs to overcome it

Author:
Ryan Isley, SBLive Sports
Updated:
Oct 16, 2023 4:22 PM EDT
Original:
Oct 16, 2023

AKRON, Ohio – For some runners, a medal for finishing in the top 10 of the Akron City Series cross country championships might just be a medal. But for Garfield senior Keanu Norr, it was much more.

“I feel like when they placed that medal around my neck, for me it was change,” Norr said. “This right here, it was proof that change came, that I changed, because it was from zero to something. And (it was) success. Success for sure.”

When Norr talks about change and success, he isn’t talking about changing the way he runs or the way he prepares for a race, or even where he finishes in a specific race.

The change Norr speaks of doesn’t even have much to do with the sport in which he finished eighth — and the top runner not from Firestone — in the City Series championship at Goodyear Heights Metro Park on Oct. 11.

The real change for Norr is how he evolved from a kid who spent his entire childhood in the foster care system, to a 14-year-old who self-harmed repeatedly and spent multiple years in different mental health facilities, to a 19-year-old on the cusp of graduating from high school.

And he's on a team surrounded by people who care about him — something he hasn’t always had.

While some might look at Norr's arms and just see the scars from all the cut marks — and if he feels comfortable enough, he will show you the marks on his chest and stomach as well — that is just part of this young man’s story.

In the beginning

Norr was born on June 25, 2004, to an 18-year-old mother who already had two other kids, including one born just 11 months before Keanu, and he later became the older brother to two more.

With his biological parents no longer in a relationship and unable to take care of the children, all five kids were placed in foster care. Norr and his siblings spent the first few years of his life bouncing from home to home, sometimes together, sometimes apart.

He suffered different forms of abuse at some of the homes, and although he doesn’t remember everything, he has heard the stories and has seen the paperwork showing him the proof of what happened.

One home in particular is painfully unforgettable.

“There was this one foster home that I was in, and they actually starved me," Norr said. "They weren’t feeding me. And they would take me to the doctors and lie. And they eventually did a CAT scan on me, and they literally found rocks, grass, toilet paper, a bunch of stuff like that in my system.”

The foster parents were arrested after an investigation, and Norr moved again.

Finding the right foster home

At the age of 4, he was placed in the care of Almeda and Brian Norr in Creston, Ohio, along with his brothers Ellis and James. And then after the other two siblings came for a visit, the Norrs took them in, too.

“The two other siblings were actually planned to get adopted into somewhere else,” Keanu Norr said. “But then they came to visit us, and Almeda was like, ‘I gotta take them too.’”

The Norrs and the five children settled into a routine, and the kids had what Keanu described as a mostly basic upbringing.

“They're great people, just wonderful,” Keanu said of the Norrs. “We went on vacations twice a year, three times a year sometimes. I was in sports since like first grade when I played football and basketball and then ran track in middle school. From age 4 all the way up till I was about 14, it was just a normal, decent childhood.”

Where things started to change

When Keanu was in fifth grade, there was a house fire at the Norr residence. And then two months later, something worse happened.

“My cousin Joey got diagnosed with cancer,” Keanu said. “This dude was my best friend for real. We lived right next door to each other. He taught me how to throw a football. He taught me how to shoot a basketball. Everything.”

The two had already looked to their futures, as well.

“We even had a plan that when I turned 18, he was going to be 20 and we would get our own spot,” Keanu said.

And then two years after the initial diagnosis, Joey passed away at the age of 15.

Self-harming and mental health

About a year after Joey’s passing, thoughts started haunting Keanu to the point where he became a danger to himself.

“I started to become really (bad),” Keanu said. “I was nuts. I was crazy, for sure. I started self-harming and stuff, like really bad.”

One incident Keanu remembers vividly happened in the school bathroom.

“It got to the point where I literally tried killing myself in the stall,” Keanu said. “A kid literally saw blood on the floor and was like (what’s happening)? It was scary.”

Despite his past, Keanu felt like he had a good life and couldn’t figure out why he was having the feelings he was having.

“I was just very confused, and I don't know why I was confused,” Keanu said. “They think that I also had nightmares and it just triggered something in my mind. And I just started self-harming and I wanted to die. I honestly think it was a trauma response from everything in my past.”

Keanu says he self-harmed randomly and almost unconsciously.

“I never really thought I was going to end up doing it,” Norr said. “I had a dream, and I woke up the next day and I self-harmed because of what was going on in here (points to his head). I think it was the trauma. It was something in my brain. I think the self-harm thing or something like this was bound to happen regardless. I feel like something was eventually going to trigger my mind into it because the trauma and all that abuse, it already happened. It's going to be right in front of me eventually, and I'm going to have to deal with it.”

Other than the abuse as a kid, the house fire and the death of his cousin, he had also dealt with the loss of Brian Norr’s brother, who died of a heart attack at the age of 50, which Keanu said “blew everybody’s mind.”

The self-harming got worse, and then just as he felt like he was starting to turn a corner, he got kicked out of school during his freshman year at Norwayne High School.

“One of my friends lied on me and said that I brought a gun to school,” Keanu said. “And the principal called me down and asked me about it and I told him to go check my bag.”

He said the school suspended him and eventually kicked him out despite the claim being untrue, and he moved on to the LEAP program, an alternative behavioral school.

Mental health facilities and therapists

Because of the constant threat of self-harm and mental health concerns, a therapist persuaded Almeda Norr to place Keanu in a mental health facility on lockdown.

He began at the Christian Children’s home of Ohio in Wooster and was there for 15 months.

“It was really close to my house, which was really cool, so I got visitations a lot from Almeda when I was there,” Keanu said. “The people were great, and overall it was a decent facility.”

The next step — Keanu moving back in with Almeda — didn’t go according to plan.

“There was a situation that happened,” Keanu said. “I was manic, and I just did some stupid (stuff) so I couldn't go back.”

He didn't elaborate further.

This started the endless cycle of bouncing from facility to facility for Keanu until he was 18. He said he was abused several times and reported one of the facilities to police.

“It was traumatizing. Definitely a lot of (stuff) happened in there,” Keanu said. “They were very abusive. I had an episode there because of something crazy that happened and they kicked me out of that spot, and I told the cops everything that happened, but who's going to listen to a 16-year-old?”

Keanu went back to self-harming, and he attempted suicide.

“I went into the bathroom and the Clorox toilet bowl cleaner, I drank almost the whole entire thing of that,” Keanu said. “They rushed me to the hospital. They had to do all that stuff. They literally told me I wasn't going to make it. I literally fell asleep the next day, and I woke up and I went to the bathroom and when I (urinated), it didn't hurt or anything. And I told them that and they were like, well, I don't know what to tell you, you're good, I guess.”

One of the issues Keanu had with the facilities was not having anyone to talk to. He had plenty of therapists, but he just wanted someone to listen to him instead of constantly looking down and taking notes.

“I don't really like therapy that much, because therapy now to me, they go by what’s in the books,” Keanu said. “I don't really like that because it's like you're not really getting to know me, you're just (writing) and then you're like ‘what do I need to do to fix you?’ If you're going to do (that), I won't open up to you if you're not going to have an actual conversation and I know you're not actually listening to what I'm actually saying.”

A huge breakthrough came for Keanu when he found the right therapist.

“He definitely changed my perspective on life for sure in some ways,” Keanu said. “We played basketball, we were out talking and doing stuff, and that made me so comfortable to the point where I would open up to him, and that was the trick. He understood me. And any time something happened, he wasn't yelling at me.”

Connecting with his birth parents

While at a facility in Wooster, one of the residents snuck in a cellphone so they could check their social media accounts.

That’s when Keanu got a shock.

“I got this Snapchat notification, and it said ‘Caroline House,’” Keanu said. “That's my mom, but I didn't know that. I didn't even know what my mom looked like. I didn't know what her name was. I accept it, and she's like, ‘Hey, what's up?’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, what's up?’ And then she's asking me if I have a brother named Jaden and a sister named Jasmine, all my siblings.

“Now I'm thinking this woman's crazy. Why are you naming all of my siblings? And she told me ‘I'm your mom.’ And I was like ‘get out of here.’ And I told her to show me some proof. And she did and I was like, that's my mom. I was happy about it.”

Keanu hadn’t seen his birth mom since early in life, and his memory of her wasn’t clear.

“All that trauma and stuff that happened put a blockage (in my brain) so I didn't really have a lot of memory of her,” Keanu said. “It's weird though because I would have dreams and nightmares of things that have happened. But I could never see my parents' face.”

When Keanu was released from the facility, he moved to Canton to live with his birth mom. But after a short time, she kicked him out after the two had an argument, which led to a reunion with his birth father.

“I’m not going to say (we were close), but we did start to bond a little bit,” he said of his dad.

But Keanu went back to self-harming, which led to his dad showing him the door.

“He kicked me out at 2 o’clock in the morning,” Keanu said. “At that point in time, I was at the lowest point of my life. I literally got out of the facility two months ago, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. You know, my reality is I'm still stuck at like a 16-year-old brain capacity. I was behind walls for three years. I don't know what I'm doing. So now here I am. I'm literally homeless right now, because my dad just kicked me out. I call my friend. He doesn't pick up, so I call other people. And then he calls me back and I'm living with him and couch-hopping for a couple of days.”

He moved in with his aunt and then with his mom again, and now he's living with his dad again in Akron.

Return to high school

While in the facilities and then also once he was out of them for a few months, Keanu knew something was missing. He wasn’t getting to live the normal teenage life, even if some of the time spent in facilities was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People were still playing their sports,” Keanu said. “And I'm missing homecoming, I'm missing all of these other things with my friends. I was supposed to graduate last year. I wanted to graduate with all my Norwayne friends that I grew up with since I was in preschool or kindergarten.”

The thought of what he was missing started to mess with Keanu’s mind, but instead of self-harming, he decided to do something else.

“I was starting to hate on myself again,” Norr said. “Like I'm not good enough, I'm not this or whatever. And I said, (forget) it, I'm going back to school.”

That’s when he walked into the doors at Akron Garfield.

Meeting ‘Mama Ham’

Shellie Hamrick is the teacher of Garfield’s NOW program, which according to Hamrick is "a behavioral class and resource room for kids that have either severe behavioral disorders or emotional disturbance."

While some weren’t sure if Keanu would be a fit at Garfield because of his past, Hamrick wanted a chance to evaluate him herself.

“I was like, OK, let me just get this kid and we'll see,” Hamrick said. “He came into my room looking like a substitute teacher of course, because he looks so grown and acts so grown and he just kind of opened up to me. He was just very open about why he had come to Akron, where he had been, the abuse that had happened, the abuse he put upon himself, and I just loved the kid right away.

“He just needed a mama all day long. And that is my jam.”

Hamrick, who is short in stature, plays up the mother card to all her students, to the point where people call her "Mama Ham."

“I am very motherly to my classroom, because obviously I'm not very big, I'm 5-foot-nothing,” Hamrick says with a laugh. “Giant men come into my room, and I know I'm not intimidating at all physically. So, I just mom all day long, and then I hit him with ‘don't disappoint me’ and that usually gets them.”

It wasn’t a perfect fit for Keanu right away at Garfield, though, because it had been four years since he had been in a public school.

“When he first came last year, he was definitely more emotionally unstable than he is now,” Hamrick said. “There was chaos at home, and he felt very much older than all of these kids. And I just didn't feel like he fit. And then he started joking around with all the kids. My classroom is like a big family, so he just became part of the family. And then he loved it and really didn't want to go out for classes too much because they were a little much for him. And he just stayed with me like all day, and we talked, and we did assignments, and we talked some more. He's just an easy kid to love, really.”

Keanu lights up when talking about Hamrick.

“Miss Hamrick has been there since last year, and she's just freaking amazing,” he said.

When Keanu was thinking about not coming back to school for his senior year, Hamrick would not let that happen.

“He had a rough summer emotionally, and then he really kind of wanted to drop out,” Hamrick said. “I refused for that to happen. I told him I would show up at his house and drag him out of his house if I needed to, and he knew I meant it. And so I talked him into coming to school and convinced him finishing with me would be his best bet. I had a plan where he could graduate this year, whereas if he went somewhere else, I was worried that he wouldn't have the time or the patience to make up everything that I knew I could fit in one year for him.”

Keanu is thankful.

“I wasn't planning to come back to school this year,” he said. “Miss Hamrick convinced me to come back. And I'm definitely glad I did for sure.”

Running to get away

When things would bother Keanu, he had a simple solution to get away from his thoughts — run.

“I would run around my block constantly, all the time, when I was like 12,” Keanu said. “It was about four miles. Sometimes I'd run it twice, just depending on how I was feeling. But yeah, that's really when it all started.”

Running was something he could do without having to count on somebody else to be with him, so it quickly became his release.

“(When) I started to self-harm and things just got really, really bad very quickly, I noticed that running, I could do that and I was good at it,” he said. “And it was just like a coping skill that I felt like always worked. And it was just there. You know, I don't have to rely on anybody else. I could just go for a run.”

He even ran to get to and from work this school year for a few weeks when his bike needed repairs. From home to work was four miles, and he would either walk or run every day.

And then there was the day where Keanu wasn’t in a good place mentally and wanted to stay home, but Hamrick knew he needed to be at school and not left alone.

“He was really upset, and he didn't want to come to school, and I was like, how about you run to school,” Hamrick said. “And he ran to school, and by the time he ran to school, he was feeling good and smiling and he was that Keanu that we all love. I was like this is it, this is your coping skill. That's why I tease and call him Forrest Gump because he started running and then he just kept running. It's a wonderful escape for him.”

With that in mind, Hamrick enlisted the help of two other teachers in the school.

Meeting Mr. Kersten and Miss Martin

Hamrick decided that since she wasn’t a runner, the best thing she could do was introduce Keanu to two people in the school who could talk running with him — Matt Kersten and Stephanie Martin.

Martin, a medical tech instructor at Garfield, treats the NOW program students like they are one of her own.

“She loves my kids, and she talks to them, and she encourages them,” Hamrick said. “You know, she's amazing. She's an awesome teacher and human being.”

And with Keanu, Martin was able to talk his language of running.

“I was like, if you could just kind of take him under your wing, I want him to succeed and I want him to finish high school,” Hamrick said she told Martin. “And she took that and ran with it.”

Then there’s Kersten — an intervention specialist at Garfield who also happens to be the assistant cross country coach this year after being the head cross country coach the past several seasons.

“I told Kersten I have this kid, he's fast, he loves to run, and I really need to keep trying to keep him from dropping out,” Hamrick said. “So I need you to do that Kersten thing that you do and just pump him up, be his hype man, because this kid needs all the support and all the love and all of the attention he can get to make sure he finishes.

“And you know of course, Kersten took that and ran. He's amazing at doing that with all the kids. His energy and Keanu’s energy are very similar, you know, very hyper, very intense and awesome, all at the same time. So I knew that they would hit it off, and they absolutely did.”

When Hamrick says "do that Kersten thing," she means Kersten's ability to take an intense interest in his students to make sure they have what they need to succeed.

Kersten is a 1999 Garfield graduate and feels a kinship to those who attend his alma mater. It also means he knows the background some of the kids come from.

Sometimes that means making sure a kid has something to eat. Sometimes, it’s a ride home. And in some cases, it’s buying a kid a suit for prom because he knows the student and his family couldn’t afford it.

“I can't touch everybody's life,” Kersten said. “But if I can touch a couple and change their outlook and that will suddenly give that kid some sort of hope and optimism that he's got a chance, let's go. Let's do this thing.”

But one life he knew he could touch was Keanu Norr’s.

“You can tell that he hasn't had a whole lot of love in his life,” Kersten said. “That's big to me, because I enjoy cases like that, because I always want to try to pay it forward and do better and put kids in a better situation.”

And despite just meeting Keanu this school year, Kersten feels close to him and has become one of his biggest supporters.

“I feel like I've known him for like five or six years, and I've known him for not even two months,” Kersten said. “Miss Hamrick came to me and was like, ‘Hey, listen, I got one of my kids, that I think runs, and I think he'd be really good. He kind of needs this.’ So she introduced me to him, and I'm like, ‘Hey man, let's go.’ And he's like, really, really juiced up about it. Like, a lot of passion, like really excited.

“The kid has brightened my life.”

And in just a couple of months, the student has come to trust the teacher.

“I trust him, like a lot,” Keanu said. “I opened up to him yesterday about some things that I haven't opened up to many people about, if anybody at all. Almeda knows everything about me, but that's about it. And it takes a while for me to do so because of where I've been at. And I have major trust issues. And he showed me that people really do actually give a (crap). You know, not all people are bad.”

The two have gotten close enough that Kersten has introduced Keanu to his two kids, who hit it off right away with him.

“He has a great relationship with my kids, and he has only met them once,” Kersten said. “I started telling my kids about his story, because they don't understand because they have a plush lifestyle. And I'm like, ‘Listen, not everybody gets that.’”

Akron City Series championship

Kersten persuaded Keanu to come out for cross country. The first time the team went to Goodyear Heights Metro Park for a practice, Kersten could tell Keanu had the speed to compete.

“Everybody’s running and he's gone — like just gone, man, he's blazing a trail,” Kersten said. “And he really didn't know where he was going. He just was running. He doesn't train to be a cross country runner, he trains to get away from mental things.”

And then when there was a day Keanu couldn’t make it to practice, he ran on his own. But he didn’t just run a few miles to train.

“He ran 11 miles," Kersten said. "That's marathon training. He's like, ‘I just got after it a little bit.’ He sent me a screenshot and it was the stats from the app. I was like, ‘bro, you just ran 11 miles,’ and he goes, ‘I didn't even know it. I just was ... I was flying. I was working.’”

And as the City Series cross country championship meet was approaching on Oct. 11, it was just like everything else in Keanu's life — full of complications.

Hamrick brought him some blankets for the house a couple of days before because there was no heat, and then Kersten had him come over and stay with him, his wife Amy and their two kids the night before the race.

“He's got the biggest meet of his life,” Kersten said. “I wanted to make sure he gets a meal and a nice bed to sleep in. We woke up, he's ready to roll, and he's like, ‘I slept great, man.’ I'm like, ‘ready to go today?’ And he said, “(heck) yeah, let's go.”

Before they went to bed that night though, Kersten wanted Keanu to show his kids another talent he has.

“I'm telling you, he can play the guitar,” Kersten said. “I said, ‘take your guitar. I want you to show my kids that you can play that (thing).’”

But with the success Keanu had started showing as the season progressed, the pressure mounted. So when Keanu told Kersten he was feeling heavy on the morning of the meet, the teacher reassured him that where he placed didn't matter.

“I said, ‘You've already won,’” Kersten said. “’You have no pressure. I want you to go out there and have fun. And let all the chips fall where they may. I just want you to run your race and understand that everybody that's there to see you and see the Rams are going to love you the same if you finish last or if you finish first. You've already made us proud.’”

Then on the day of the race, Keanu didn’t have his shoes and didn’t have a way to get them. So in stepped Mama Ham.

“I bought him some shoes because I didn't want that to be the thing that got in his head and where he thought he couldn't perform and he couldn't win, because he is easily discouraged at times,” Hamrick said. “Just the look on his face when I give him the shoes — it's not like oh, you know Mama Ham got me some shoes, it was pure joy. He was so excited and strutting around the room, and (Stephanie Martin) took him outside to kind of break them in.”

The teachers even gave Keanu a nickname — "White Lightning."

“I was telling (Hamrick) that when I went here, there was a kid, Bobby Donahue, a white kid, and he's good and his nickname was ‘White Lightning,’” Kersten said. “I'm like we are going to start calling Keanu ‘White Lightning.’”

That’s all Hamrick needed to hear. She made a bead bracelet for Keanu that says “White Lightning" and even had shirts made with his picture that say "White Lightning."

For the City Series meet, Hamrick and Martin both showed up wearing the shirts, and the smile across Keanu's face lit up the park.

Then it was Hamrick, much like Kersten, who had to calm Keanu's nerves on race day, as he was starting to pace at the end of the day.

“I was like, ‘You know you got this,’” Hamrick said. “He's like, ‘You know why I'm going to win today? Because I have a purpose. I run for a purpose. I run so it can take me somewhere so I can prove stuff to people.’”

Throughout the race, Kersten and Garfield cross country head coach Kevin Gorby could be heard yelling encouragement to their runners, including Keanu.

“I can tell you Mr. Gorby, he’s annoying,” Keanu joked. “He's a great coach and I'm definitely blessed that he was my coach, no matter how much I hate his voice. He's a good dude, for sure.”

Keanu finished eighth and earned a spot on the All-City team. After he crossed the finish line, he wrapped his arms around Kersten, who hugged him tight.

“It was an emotional day for sure, and that definitely, you know, brought tears in my eyes afterwards,” Keanu said. “I was even talking to Almeda about it. And I was like, I really made it this far. You know? Like it's great. Because I never thought I would make it past 18. I come from trying to kill myself and just a lot of trauma, a lot of abuse, a lot of neglect — all this stuff — to I'm going to graduate high school, you know, I'm running cross country, I’m doing all these positive things.

“And it's like, damn, I really did that.”

One other person watching that meet was Almeda, who saw Keanu reach his goals.

“I can tell you this woman is the strongest woman that I've ever met.,” Keanu said. “She was there since Day One and is still here. And the amount of the hell that we both went through during this entire process — yeah, that's a strong woman, I can tell you that for sure. And I'm definitely proud that she's my mom.”

Keanu appreciates cross country for giving him something he had been missing for so long — being a part of a team.

“To be a part of a team and actually people wanting to be around me and not being like ‘get away from me,’ it's a beautiful thing," Keanu said. "It really is.”

No more self-harming

Keanu offered a poignant reason for why he stopped self-harming.

“The total amount of times I tried killing myself and how I've tried to do it, and the amount that I haven't died — I'm here for a reason,” he said. “I was like, damn, like, I'm really here for something, you know. I always knew that I was different than other people. I always knew I stood out in different ways. And I think I lost that when I started to self-harm.”

And having so many people in his corner these past two years has been huge.

“I finally found my purpose, for sure,” Keanu said. “I can say that the people, some of them in my life, have definitely been a big impact.”

As for the scars on his arms, chest and stomach from where he cut himself? It used to bother him when people would ask, but it has become second nature.

“To be honest, it's kind of normal now,” Keanu said. “At first it was just like, man, stop asking me this dumb (stuff), bro. But now it's just like yeah, I used to self-harm. It’s part of my story.”

But when little kids ask, he tells them a different tale.

“I lie and say I jumped into a tiger pit,” he joked. “I'm going to try to keep them staying innocent as long as they can. So I tell them I jumped in a tiger pit and the tiger messed me up.”

What’s next for Keanu Norr?

Keanu Norr will graduate with the Garfield Class of 2024 in June.

He isn’t sure what he wants to do after graduation, but he has some ideas. Playing the guitar, much like running, has been a release through the tough times.

“I've been playing since I was like 14,” Keanu said. “When I started self-harming, my mom told me to find a coping skill. And I was like, let's do music. So I started playing the guitar. I actually write my own music. I do a bunch of music stuff. So honestly, a good part of me wants to do something with music. Music has changed and saved my life multiple times.”

He also floated the idea of becoming a firefighter.

“That’s a great idea,” Kersten said as soon as it came out of Keanu’s mouth.

One thing Keanu doesn’t see himself doing in the future? Being a teacher.

“I can't do that, there’s no way,” Keanu said. “The kids would drive me nuts.”

Hamrick disagrees. When she had him over to her house for dinner one night, Keanu asked Hamrick what she thought he should do, and she told him he would make a great teacher.

“I was like, ‘I think you would be amazing with them,'” Hamrick said. “’The fact that you are so thoughtful and reflective in the things that you have been through. Can you imagine some kid coming into your classroom and they're in foster care, or they had it rough at home or they did whatever but they have you as a teacher and you've been through all that and you've made it through it and you know, you did something amazing.’”

She even suggested becoming the next Matt Kersten.

“'You have so much to give back to these kids that I think you would be an amazing teacher like Kersten, you know, like an intervention specialist,'” Hamrick told Keanu. “’You could find the kids that are struggling like you were struggling and lift them up with just your story alone, plus your energy.’”

The Hamrick house is also where another athletic feat will not be forgotten.

“I did beat him two times at P-I-G at my house,” Hamrick said. “I do like to throw that in his face every chance I can.”

But no matter what path Keanu Norr chooses in life, he will always have people rooting him on and loving him at Garfield.

“I can't say enough about him,” Hamrick said. “I love him, he loves me. I'm going to know him forever. He's just one of my keepers for sure.”

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-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh

(Feature photo of Keanu Norr courtesy of Matt Kersten)