FOR JACK, 'QUIT' DOESN'T MEAN A THING.

PACOIMA - The first kid in class threw thumb tacks under the tires of Jack Fischer's wheelchair. The second shot a rubber band at him.

Tough crowd for a rookie school teacher.

Thumb tacks and flying rubber bands weren't exactly the warm welcome Fischer, a former Olympic gymnastic hopeful who had become a quadriplegic, was expecting 10 years ago when he rolled into his first classroom at Broadous Elementary School in Pacoima.

It was a big day for him. A comeback, of sorts, he says.

As a kid, he had flunked second grade - held back because of a learning disability. Now, he was going to be teaching it.

``I couldn't believe that first day,'' he said Monday, able to laugh at the memory now. He and the school have come a long way since then.

``I thought, don't these kids realize I'm disabled? Why are they shooting rubber bands at me? I wanted to quit right then.

``On my way to the principal's office, two veteran teachers stopped me. They said, `Where are you going, Jack?' I told them I was going to quit.

``They said, `No you're not - turn around and go back into that classroom.' And that's what I did.''

It was the best turnaround Fischer had made since realizing his life wasn't over after a fall from the parallel bars while training for the U.S. Olympic trials in 1979 left him a quadriplegic.

Fischer was ranked second in the country at Indiana State University in the men's still rings competition, and had come to California to train for the Olympic trials with the Christian athletic group Athletes In Action.

``I tried a double back flip off the parallel bars, and landed on my back, breaking my neck,'' he said, his voice displaying none of the fear and depression that once ruled his life after the accident.

He was 27 years old and totally paralyzed for a year before getting limited upper body and arm movement back.

Peter Yost, a teammate, was training on the floor exercise mat when the accident happened.

``I heard the screams and turned around,'' Yost said. ``It wasn't Jack screaming. It was the guys who had seen him fall. It was that bad.

``He went through a deep, deep depression, but he rebounded,'' Yost said. ``Jack spent months in the gym and rehab trying to walk again, but he finally had to give up on that dream after a few years.''

He would replace one dream with another: a woman named Maria, who happened to be a schoolteacher, and would later become Jack's wife and mother of their daughter, Abigail.

They met in a church parking lot. Jack was having trouble with his wheelchair, and Maria asked if she could help.

``I told her, no, to get out of here, I could do it myself,'' he said, shaking his head. ``I was a real jerk. I later apologized, and we started dating.''

That was the second time he had failed to ask for help when he needed it, Jack said. It would be his last.

``I should have asked some of the guys for help to spot me on the parallel bars the day I tried that double back flip, and I should have thanked Maria, instead of yelling at her, for wanting to help me the day we met,'' he said.

``It's one of the things I tell all my students now: Never be afraid to ask for help in anything.''

His students. They're not throwing tacks under his wheelchair or snapping rubber bands at him anymore. They're listening and learning from the veteran teacher who flunked second grade and now teaches it.

Jack's class is off track at Broadous until later this month, but stopping by the school Monday, it's easy to see he's a popular guy. Kids who were not even in his class ran up to greet him.

``We get requests from kids all the time to be in his class,'' said Donald Shroyer, assistant principal. ``They love him.

``What I see walking into his classroom are kids motivated to learn. You can tell he loves to teach.''

Yeah, he does, Fischer says. More than anyone will ever know.

He learned a lot from those teachers who stopped him from quitting 10 years ago, he says.

``They taught me a good teacher has to go beyond the classroom and find out where these kids are coming from, what their lives are like outside of school,'' he said.

``Only in talking to their parents and developing a compassion for them can you win their respect and their minds. I had one little boy who would hide under his desk every day. He had seen his father shot and killed, and he was always afraid.

``We worked hard on beating his fears, just as I had beaten mine,'' Jack said. ``But we did.

``As I have said to all my kids, I went from being one of the strongest men (doing the iron cross maneuver on the still rings) in the country to being one of the weakest.

``I thought my life was over, but it was only beginning.''

With that, Jack Fischer leaves school Monday and heads for the apartment of a man he has never met.

All he knows from a friend is that the man has been a quadriplegic for six years and spends his days in bed with the sheets pulled up over his head.

``He thinks his life is over, and I've got to try to convince him that he's wrong,'' Jack says.

Convince him, as others did for him once, that he shouldn't quit.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Second-grade teacher Jack Fischer, above, is right at home at Broadous Elementary School, where he's worked for the past decade. Before a training injury left him a quadriplegic, he was a gymnast, photographed here, left, in the iron cross maneuver on the still rings during the 1977 U.S. Nationals.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer