IU student’s lowest point, the loss of her brother, led her to the Little 500

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BLOOMINGTON — Getting the text from her best friend that morning made Jess Hamilton think twice.

An ambulance in her family’s driveway?

Hamilton didn’t think much of it at first. She knew that when she left home to start her freshman year at Indiana she was leaving behind a brother battling drug addiction. But still, it probably wasn't anything serious.

But an ambulance there in the morning?

It was September 18, 2017 — 12 days before her brother's 22nd birthday. Jess was sitting in CJUS-P 200: Theories of Crime and Deviance, like she did every Monday morning. But after a while, she found it hard to focus on the lecture. She texted her dad.

He told her to call after class.

Jess continued with her routine. After class, she and a friend walked to Forest Quadrangle for a grilled cheese sandwich from The Clubhouse. Eventually, Jess stepped away before walking to her next class.

“I knew that something was terribly wrong at home,” Jess remembers.

She was standing on 3rd Street, across from Mother Bear’s Pizza, when she finally got on the phone with her dad.

“Matt overdosed last night,” he told her.

Her brother was gone.

The rest of the morning was a blur, but the details remain seared into her memory. Unaware of how to process the call, she continued to her finite class until the emotions overcame her in lecture and she had to leave. She remembers the walk through the crowd of students down Jordan Avenue on her way back to her dorm in the 80-degree heat at the end of a Bloomington summer.

It was also the day that exposed her to realities she’d long ignored and motivated her to find the outlet she is proudest of.

“I was at the lowest point ever,” Jess, then 18, says now. “I had never not had something that I was involved in and passionate about. So I really found myself (thinking), ‘I don’t really care what it is, I just want something to commit my time to.’”

***

Jess’ parents were constantly checking Matt’s grades and always on top of what he was doing. Jess was the "good child," so by the time Matt’s drug use became an issue, she stayed out of it.

“I blocked myself off and chose not to think about it,” she says. “I was trying to shelter myself and protect myself, I guess, but because of that I was very in the dark to the real reality of what was going on.”

The more he used, the more they drifted apart. They didn’t have the perfect brother-sister relationship. His addiction affected Jess’ relationship with her parents. She blamed him for ruining their family, and never gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s his fault,” Jess told herself. “He chose to do this himself.”

While she stayed away, she still overheard the conversations. Putting up those walls made that Monday morning so shocking.

“I never once considered the fact that he was gonna overdose,” Jess admits.

In 2017, Matt was one of the more than 70,000 people in the United States who died from drug overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The night he died, Matt overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl. Heroin was what he used the most, but in some paperwork from a rehab facility, Jess later found that he had tried “every drug in the book.”

He had had checked himself into multiple rehab facilities. He signed up for a clinical trial to battle addiction but was turned down because he had Type 1 Diabetes. Jess knows that addiction isn’t just a series of wrong choices her brother made. It was something hebattled, but she often overlooked that.

“It took my brother passing away and dying from this to finally understand what he was going through, take the time to think about it and not just put it on the back-burner,” Jess said.

Jess regretted how she treated Matt, but after his death, her attention turned toward helping her parents grieve. She was their only surviving child, and she needed to repair her relationship with them as well.

Jess remembers her dad walking into her room after Matt’s funeral. He told her she would have to take camping trips and talk about cars with him because he could no longer do that with Matt.

She spent breaks from schools drinking frozen margaritas with her dad and sifting through old photos while she and her parents cried together. The Thanksgiving break following Matt’s funeral, Jess and her mom got tattoos of butterflies on their left forearms to symbolize him.

“The silver lining in (Matt) passing away is that I do have a relationship with my parents now,” Jess said. “Which is something that I can’t say I ever did growing up.”

As much as she hoped to help her parents, she struggled to balance her emotions. The anger and guilt lingered even as time passed.

Socializing became difficult. She didn’t party as much. When she did, she’d often leave early. She’d lock herself in her dorm’s bathroom and cry.

No matter how often her friends told her that she couldn’t blame herself, it was hard to overcome the regret for how she treated Matt.

Jess started a Google doc where she wrote her feelings and thoughts every day as a coping mechanism. She wrote as if she were talking to Matt, asking him how he could do this to their parents. While hostile at times, it created a way for her to realize her own pain and begin a search for that outlet.

***

The recruitment process for sororities at Indiana begins just after the new year with an informal first round. Freshmen visit houses, have short conversations and narrow their lists.

The interviews usually involve simple questions.

What’s your major?

Where are you from?

Do you have any siblings?

That’s the question that bothered Jess.

“I hate getting that question, because yes, I have a brother, but answering that question is so terrible for me,” Jess says. “Doing it a few months after my brother passed away, in this superficial setting that is recruitment was terrible.”

Jess’ parents met through Greek life, so she had always wanted to join a sorority. As the second semester started and her list began to narrow, the interviews became less superficial. They offered her a turning point.

She explained how she wanted to commit her time to something. In high school, she played softball and volleyball. Her schedule was packed, and she needed something similar to take her mind off her brother.

She had never heard of Little 500, an annual bike race at IU. Most sororities at Indiana have a team in the race, and people suggested that she join a team after recruitment.

She immediately began training, cycling at the gym in her free time before choosing a house. She ended up in Alpha Xi Delta, which had only one rider returning from last year’s race.

Senior captain Ellen Potocsnak spoke to Jess’ pledge class early in 2018, encouraging the freshmen to join the team. Jess approached her immediately after the meeting to discuss what the next steps were.

Eight members from Jess’ pledge class showed interest, but Jess was one of three to join Potocsnak as a starter for the race in April.

The race and qualifications are the popular events on campus, but there is a yearlong preparation.

“She understood that it took training away from the spotlight, away from what most people knew,” Potocsnak said. “She understood the work that had to be put into the race right away.”

As much as racing played to Jess’ competitive side, it gave her a sense of belonging. She was part of a community that welcomed her instantly and she wouldn’t have had that without the sport she once knew nothing about.

The team finished 14th in 2018. In Jess’ sophomore year, it finished 8th. This year they hoped to finish in the top five.

“It’s my favorite thing that I’ve ever done,” she said. “It’s cool to see how it’s evolved from something that I just needed for my own personal reasons to something that has truly become part of me.”

***

On March 15, the Little 500 was canceled for the first time in its 70-year history due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement came during spring break. Jess and her teammates were still in Bloomington preparing for the race.

Jess’ teammate and roommate, Karlyn Garrison, noticed the days when Jess would be quiet — like the two-year anniversary of Matt’s passing. Garrison saw a glimpse of that after the cancellation. But Jess didn’t allow her emotions to get in the way of what truly meant most to her.

Many of the racers got together after the announcement and had a celebration of their own. Jess wasn’t commemorating a podium finish, but she wasn’t going to let her escapebe the reason for more despair.

Even on the tough days, her teammates considered her the hardest worker and biggest motivator. She was no longer suffocating herself with the emotions, instead she learned how to balance them while finding something she’s passionate about.

Cycling to her isn’t about the awards. It’s about the bond she created with her teammates and those in her sorority. It’s about the part of her she found when she was recovering from her lowest point.

When she woke up on April 24, Jess was in her childhood home with her parents, hours away from Bill Armstrong Stadium on what should have been the day of the Women’s Little 500 race.

That morning felt off, but she woke up far above her lowest point.