(mentions CMT) BEYOND THE HIGHLIGHTS: So many make marks despite ‘disabilities’

[Guest guest]

BEYOND THE HIGHLIGHTS: So many make marks despite `disabilities'

Stan Gumble

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I've reread the student-athlete interviews I've done in the last

year or so and I have been struck by how many of the kids I've

written about have had to overcome some unusual challenge in order to

participate in their particular activities.

The athletes I talk to (and this is the absolute best part of my

part-time job) are almost always selected by their coaches. I tell

the coaches that the communities like to read about kids who are

positive leaders in sport, school and community, hard working and

cooperative. Good citizens. Not necessarily the best athletes on the

team, although they often are.

Of course, this puts the coaches on the spot, since there are,

thankfully, many excellent choices. That this is true gives us real

hope for the future.

I am surprised at how often the student-athletes and others

involved in extracurriculars – those with whom I've talked or those

about whom I've written – who are, in fact, hard-working, positive

sport and school and community leaders, have achieved what they have

achieved despite difficulties like diabetes, clubfoot, Charcot-Marie-

Tooth Syndrome, grievous injuries, personal tragedy, cerebral palsy,

Down syndrome – and the list goes on. You can add some yourself.

They're in some pretty good company. Among the famous who had

challenges – handicaps? disabilities? – are Bart Giamotti, former

Yale president and, too briefly, Commissioner of Baseball, who had

Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome (the gradual deterioration of nerves to

the extremities), English Romantic poet Gordon (Lord Byron),

born with a clubfoot but swam the Hellespont (now known as the

Dardanelles, a four-mile stretch of treacherous water between Turkey

and Asia Minor), quarterback Troy Aikman had one club foot and

Olympic skater Kristy Yamaguchi, as recently revealed on Dancing With

the Stars, had two.

lin Delano Roosevelt had polio and was unable to walk at all

when he was elected president. Actress Bernhardt's right leg

was amputated when she was in her 70s but she continued to act on

stage for eight more years anyway.

Actor Earl stuttered so badly he refused to speak in

grade school. (A high school teacher encouraged him to read a poem he

had written out loud to the class. He did, and his career was born.).

Beethoven was deaf when he wrote what was probably the greatest

composition of all time and Jim Abbot had a 4.25 ERA over his 10-year

major league career despite having no right hand. That list can go on

and on, too.

Just recently, I mentioned some of this to a long-time colleague,

Honesdale High School's Dick . " It does make you wonder, " he

said. " Just what is a disability? What is it really? "

I'm not taking this where you think I am. This isn't going to be

one of those pieces that ask the reader to be inspired by those who

have achieved success despite handicaps — or disabilities or

challenges — even though they might indeed be very inspirational.

Consider these stories as triumphs and now consider the venues

that allowed them. Music, the arts, politics and sport. One of the

bases for the expressions of those triumphs is the variety of

extracurricular activities routinely offered in the public high

schools. Band, student council, the arts, athletics.

That's where I wanted to go with this. I knew I'd figure it out.

Consider a disability as just another opportunity to prove the

transcendence of the human spirit, and consider sport – and all the

other high school extracurricular activities – as just another stage

on which that transcendence plays.

[Guest guest]

I responded to the writer's colum and received the following response:

<Thanks for your response to my column. The list of high-achieving

people who have what we usually describe as disabilities is

astonishing. I've covered local sports for more than twenty years

now, and I should no longer be surprised by this. One of the best

point guards our local high school has graduated in years has CMT -

and he plans to play basketball in college. It does show the

resiliency inherent in the human spirit.

Thank you again,

Stan Gumble>