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Former CJ athlete’s heart saved life of pro golfer

Florida golf pro receives heart from C-J grad

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Lillian & Jeff Klosterman's son Isaac, (a former Chaminade Julienne & University of Dayton athlete) was 26 years old last May when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Florida. His organs were donated and his heart has gone to PGA gold pro Erik Compton, who is competing at Memorial Golf Tournament this weekend, when they all have arranged to meet.

Jim Witmer Lillian & Jeff Klosterman's son Isaac, (a former Chaminade Julienne & University of Dayton athlete) was 26 years old last May when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Florida. His organs were donated and his heart has gone to PGA gold pro Erik Compton, who is competing at Memorial Golf Tournament this weekend, when they all have arranged to meet.

By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 10:50 AM Sunday, June 7, 2009

Isaac Klosterman was living life to the fullest.

A tall, good-looking 26-year-old in perfect health, the former Chaminade Julienne and University of Dayton athlete was living in Columbus with some UD friends when he decided to take a trip to Florida with a few of his motorcycling buddies 13 months ago.

As Lillian Klosterman, his mom, explained it the other day as she took a break from her job on the UD campus:

“The other guys all had crotch-rocket bikes so they put them on a trailer for the trip. But Isaac had a real comfortable BMW, so he rode down on his own and met them in (South Florida.)”

He took the breath-taking Overseas Highway ride from Miami to Key West, where he spent time on the water, took in the sunset scene at Mallory Square and hung out on Duval Street, where he and the others went dancing with some Colorado women they met.

Meanwhile, just 150 miles back up the highway in Miami, 28-year-old Erik Compton was feeling the last of his life draining away.

He’d been diagnosed with an enlarged heart as a kid, had a transplant at age 12, become an All-America golfer at the University of Georgia and then a second-tier pro flirting with the PGA Tour.

But by the fall of 2007, his transplanted heart was giving out; and in October, he suffered a heart attack. With medication and then an external defibrillator he was able to buy a few months, but his health continued to erode.

“I slowly declined and then it was just a lot of sleepless nights as I tried to stay positive and wait for a new heart,” he said. “During that time, though, I was probably the strongest I’ve ever been mentally. I think it’s because I was really prepared for the fact that maybe I was going to die ... that maybe my life was about over.”

And then in a terrible instant, the fates of both young men dramatically interchanged.

After a week of vacation, Isaac had to leave the other guys and return to his job at Home Depot in Columbus.

Thanks to a late-night Internet search back in Dayton by his younger brother Ethan — a star volleyball player at CJ — Isaac was able to find a KOA campground near Lion Country Safari outside West Palm Beach for that first night.

About an hour after midnight, Isaac was on Highway 80, just a mile from the campground when his BMW was run over from behind by a white pickup truck.

The impact, Lillian said, knocked the front bumper off the truck and — from the white paint found on his helmet — apparently catapulted her son onto the hood of the pickup for some 250 feet. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s investigators said the truck sped off with Isaac lying in the road.

Lillian said once daylight came, a vehicular homicide investigator was able to follow a trail of transmission fluid about two miles and found the suspected truck hidden behind a horse trailer, where the vehicle owner lived. She said the guy — who had a suspended driver’s license and no insurance — immediately lawyered up. Although he still has not been charged, the investigation is continuing.

Meanwhile, three hours after the crash — at 4 a.m. on May 16, 2008 — a Dayton police officer stepped onto the porch of the Klosterman’s home near the Dayton Art Institute and knocked.

“We all heard that dreaded ‘BAM ... BAM ... BAM,’ ” Lillian said quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “All the kids woke up, and my husband went out first and talked to him. Then I went and it was like, ‘Oh my God ... Oh no .... Oh noooo.’ ”

God’s mission  for Isaac

Erik Compton was a budding 9-year-old Little League star when what was thought to be a persistent winter cold was diagnosed as congestive cardiomyopathy, a disease that enlarged his heart and hindered its ability to pump blood. Within two years, he was vomiting often and seeing spots.

After becoming the youngest heart transplant recipient in the history of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital — when he got a heart from a 15-year-old girl killed by a drunk driver — he became the nation’s top-ranked junior golfer while at Miami’s Palmetto High, later appeared in the Walker Cup and then managed some international acclaim as a pro, including winning the King Hassan Trophy in Rabat, Morocco, in 2005.

Meanwhile, Isaac was making his own sports name. After All-City volleyball honors at CJ, he turned down an athletic offer to the University of Findlay and headed to UD, where volleyball is a club sport.

As for his heart, it wasn’t just sound, it was kind and always open.

He’d won a Dayton Peace Bridge Award for defusing a racially tinged fight scene in downtown Dayton when he was a CJ ninth-grader. He’d cared for his grandmother when she was dying; and even on that trip to Florida, he showed his character after blowing a tire in North Florida and being befriended by a Gainesville motorcycling couple, who helped him with his bike, fed him, put him up in their home over night and then got him proper gear for the Florida heat.

“He was in black leather, and they had meshy gear that allowed air flow “Lillian said. “On the way back, they said he could stay with them again and exchange the gear back.”

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