By John Branch

c.2008 New York Times News Service

BEIJING — The night before he was murdered, Todd Bachman sent a text message to his son-in-law, Hugh McCutcheon. It was during the opening ceremony, and Bachman was there, watching McCutcheon and the U.S. men’s volleyball team that he coached march into the stadium.

“We’re very happy to be able to share in this wonderful event,” the message read.

Bachman, 62, died about 14 hours later, after being attacked by a knife-wielding Chinese man at the Drum Tower, a well-known tourist site that dates to the 13th century. Bachman’s wife, Barbara, turned to help and was stabbed repeatedly. She remains hospitalized, and was upgraded from critical to serious condition Sunday.

Witnessing the attack was one of the Bachmans’ daughters, Elisabeth, a 2004 Olympian on the U.S. women’s volleyball team and McCutcheon’s wife since 2006. She and her parents were on a guided tour of the tower.

For most of four years, McCutcheon had been preparing his team to make a medal run at the Olympics. The attack came the day before the United States’ opening match, and McCutcheon has indefinitely stepped aside to tend to his family. Whether he returns to coach during the tournament will depend on the condition of his mother-in-law in the coming days, he said during an interview at a Beijing hotel.

“Volleyball is my job,” McCutcheon said. “My family is my life. It’s an easy distinction for me to make.”

The Americans, led by the assistant coach Ron Larsen, beat Venezuela on Sunday. They play Italy in another preliminary match Tuesday.

McCutcheon, grim but straight forward, said that as a “representative of the Bachmans,” he wanted to speak publicly mostly to thank people for the support. Among those he mentioned were Chinese doctors and authorities, the U.S. Olympic committee and the countless well wishers, including President Bush.

He declined to provide details of the attack, saying it remained under investigation, but said he did not believe any incident precipitated it. The USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said that the organization, along with Chinese authorities, believed that the attack was a random one. The Bachmans, from Lakeville, Minn., were not wearing anything that identified them as part of the U.S. Olympic delegation.

“There’s no indication here of any premeditation or anything,” McCutcheon said. “It seems just, unfortunately, a case of the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The attacker, identified by Chinese state media as 47-year-old Tang Yongming, jumped to his death from a 130-foot high Drum Tower balcony immediately after the stabbings.

McCutcheon was leading a team practice on Saturday afternoon when he received a message that Elisabeth needed him urgently. She was still at the Drum Tower when he reached her and told him what happened, and McCutcheon was quickly ushered there.

Two days later, the initial shock had turned to lingering sadness. Anger, McCutcheon said, had not been one of the emotions.

“It’s certainly not anger,” he said. “It hurts. I think it’s something that no one should have to go through. Life’s not fair. It’s never going to be about that kind of stuff. At the end of the day, it happened, and it seems the sooner we can come to grips with that and kind of process it the better off we’re going to be. For me personally, and I can only speak for me personally, anger isn’t an emotion I’m allowing myself to indulge in at this time.”