I became a role model after my accident. The pun is as unintended as my new role was unavoidable. Maybe I’d been a role model before the ski crash where I broke my back. Maybe a person or people looked up to me, but I didn’t feel the responsibility because I didn’t know. After the accident, friends and strangers treated me differently—like I’d learned something new, like I had something to share, but I didn’t feel changed. When I was in the hospital a high school friend, Rob Schumlts said, “You’re the only one of our friends who could deal with this.” This shocked me. My high school friends from Deerfield Academy were some of the most intelligent and impressive people I’ve known in my life. What did that mean? I was the only one among our friends who could have dealt with this? It meant that people watched what I did. I meant that I’d become a role model.

I think about being a role model because it was a role that was both thrust on me and one that I embraced. After the accident, I had to educate the people around me because most of them had never interacted with someone in a wheelchair. As an athlete, sponsors were drawn to my image. No one ever paid me to compete—$6,000 was the most prize money I ever won in a year—they paid me for the message I could deliver—the message I embodied.

I have struggled with being a role model in the past, and I’m sure I will in the future. It’s not a comfortable role and probably shouldn’t be. There’s a part of me that wants to retire to the shadows because image can be two-dimensional. I loved that I became almost a legend—like a superman figure—amongst my friends. For someone, who always wanted to be outstanding, it was great, but I also felt the burden that I couldn’t have a bad day, couldn’t be uncertain, or insecure. Still, I had only achieved legend status in a small group. My athletic career suffered from a lack of exposure. Therein lies paradox. I needed the exposure to make a living and an impression, but with the exposure comes responsibility.

As our project becomes gathers momentum, I consider the pluses and minuses of being a role model. Joseph Campbell said, “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities for human life.” A role model often achieves mythical status, but it’s a living myth that is subject to the whims of society, which loves to build up our stars, knock them down, and then maybe embrace them again. My first thoughts about the role model dilemma drew me to Charles Barkley and his 1993 Nike ad (you can watch it on youtube) in which he says, “I am not a role model…just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”

Charles represents so many of the inherent contradictions in stardom and its responsibilities. The ad seems to say that he doesn’t want the responsibility of being a role model, which makes sense when we look at how many of our traditional heroes: athletes, actors, Presidents, performers, etc. have failed in our eyes. No one can be everything to everyone. No one is perfect. As I approach a time when the public will look at me more, I know that I’m far from perfect. Like Barkley in the ad, I wish to avoid the role, but also like Charles, I feel a responsibility. In his book, Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?, he leverages his celebrity to help a group that can’t help themselves. He wants to help the African American community.

One story from a collection of interviews stuck with me. Tiger Woods had just won his first Masters, at a club that still prevents women members, in a sport that closed its doors to many races, particularly African Americans. Tiger recounts a moment during the award’s ceremony on the putting green, when he looked up to a sea of white coats on the balcony. Cooks, staff, attendants, etc., they all watched in their white uniforms, and they were all black. They had never attended the awards ceremony before. At a place that has historically represented exclusion, Tiger won for a whole group of people who never entered the tournament. That to me, is the definition of a role model, helping those who might not be able to help themselves. Like Charles and Tiger, I feel a responsibility to represent many of those who don’t have a voice. That’s why I’m climbing. That’s why I embrace the spotlight, but I’m still not sure I embrace the role model tag, and that’s why I look around for my own.

Last week I picked up three different role models. I spoke with a friend in the midst of chemotherapy for breast cancer. She looked great, sounded great, and continued to be her vibrant self. I asked her if the disease forced her to looked at her life critically. She said, “Yes, and it confirmed what I’ve always believed. My family and friends come first and then my job.” First of all, she’s really good at her job, which tells you how good she is at the other two, but secondly, it’s great that someone can achieve that kind of perspective both before and during a traumatic event.

The second role models were a brother sister team, five and seven respectively. I skied with Karsten and Campbell, who are the son and daughter of my good friends Pablo and Lynanne. Karsten and Campbell became my role models because they had so much fun. They skied the whole mountain, deep powder (eight inches is deep when you’re only three feet tall), bumps, everything, but it was the joy that they brought to it—popping a jump so a sliver of daylight slid between the skis and the snow. These two ripped it up.

At the end of the day, Karsten chose our trail, a black diamond bump run. The adults looked at each other as if to say really? We followed him and he popped one of the bumps. Daylight flashed beneath his skis. He and Campbell had done this throughout our time on the mountain. To me, that sheer joy was worthy of a role model, because it represents the way that I want to live my life. I want to ride that little bit of daylight the way that they did. So I’ll move forward not completely comfortable with being a role model, but happy that I have such great ones to follow. Thanks Kasten and Cambell. Thanks Becky. And thanks Charles and Tiger, too. 

I think we should bring back “Handicapped.” Now let me explain. While the word conjures up images of a bygone era: institutional “shut ins” that were removed from society, antiquated fifty-pound wheelchairs and wooden legs, there’s more to it than that. We’ve progressed in recent years, but have we named it the wrong thing? My titanium wheelchair weighs about sixteen pounds. With carbon fiber prosthetics, amputee sprinters run so fast that the International Olympic Committee ruled that they have an unfair advantage (yes, there’s material for another blog there). I competed for the US Disabled Ski Team, which originated with National Handicapped Sports, now modernized to Disabled Sports USA. Disabled represents progress. Handicapped is stuck in the past. Or is it?

Last week I skied with a group of journalists at Snow Basin, the site of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Downhill and Super G and all of the Paralympic events. Journalists joined a small group of us to honor Snow Basin’s newly formed adaptive (another word) skiing program. Sitting at lunch with Jessica Kunzer of Ski Utah and formerly of the National Ability Center, the adaptive program in Park City, and Chet Cooper, the editor for Ability Magazine, the conversation bounced around. Mostly we recounted Chet’s successful descent of the men’s Downhill course—no small feat for a guy from Orange County, especially considering that Olympic racers had accelerated to seventy miles an hour in about three seconds out of the start. It’s steep. But, then Chet stated his preference for “handicapped” over “disabled.”

I might not be an expert, and, sure, he makes his living with words, but he’s able-bodied. Don’t I have some sort of inside information on what’s acceptable? Usually, I don’t care what someone calls me. I don’t want to get caught up in political correctness, but there are times that I bristle at the words like gimp or cripple. Handicapped is that kind of word. When Chet said “Handicapped” was better, I prepared to tell him he was wrong.

His argument went something like this. Golf handicaps level the playing field—same with horse racing. Disabled is like baseball’s disabled list, meaning that you can’t play. The conversation bounced again before he could fully define his argument, but it was enough to start me thinking. Could handicapped have a more favorable connotation? 

Merriam Webster defines the two words:

Handicap: a contest in which an artificial advantage is given or disadvantage imposed on a contestant to equalize the chances of winning; also: the advantage given or disadvantage imposed.”

Disable: to make unable to perform by or as if by illness, injury or malfunction.

As I considered Chet’s comment I couldn’t help but think of Seabisuit, the great horse of the Depression. He was seemingly handicapped at birth. Laura Hillenbrand wrote in Seabiscuit,

“Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion. He was a rough-hewn, undersized horse with a sad little tail and knees that wouldn’t straighten all the way. At a gallop, he jabbed one foreleg sideways, as if he were swatting flies. For two years, he fought his trainers and floundered at the lowest level of racing, misunderstood and mishandled, before his dormant talent was discovered by three men.”

Seabiscuit seemed handicapped at birth, yet, when he started to win he faced greater handicaps. Each time officials raised the impost. They forced this little horse, which galloped as if he were swatting flies, to carry more weight than the others. They handicapped him to level the playing field—to give the others a chance. Now, that’s a connotation and a compliment, like the one the International Olympic Committee gave to amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who attempted to qualify for the 400 meter track event at this summer’s Beijing Olympics. They said, “No, you are too fast on your prosthetic limbs. You can’t play in our Games.” I’m disappointed that Oscar won’t get a chance to prove his speed on the greatest stage this summer, that might well be the real “handicap.” “Disabled” came into vogue but I like the idea of being “handicapped” for being too good or too fast. Good suggestion Chet. Thanks for opening my eyes.

Race day morning I think, just stay in the moment, which is a great thought, but how is the question. I haven’t raced in four years. I have only trained one day. My mind and body no longer know race day, which was an enigma on the best of times. During my career, I tried to convince myself that I’d made a mistake before going through the start, thereby forcing myself to play catch up—no time to think. Other times, I raced to the first gate hoping to find the rhythm, but now I had so many questions. Where did I sit with the competition? How fast could I go? I catalogued the times that I’d really been in the moment these last four years—just one entry. After surgery, my stomach felt about to burst. I had tried to distract myself from the pain. Analyze That on TV didn’t work. De Niro and Crystal couldn’t distract me, but pain wouldn’t help me achieve the moment I needed.

I remember my first race in a monoski. That day at Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire my world had shrunken to just the racecourse. It was classic fight or flight. I couldn’t ski well enough to go fast, yet wanted to qualify for Nationals. I didn’t know how fast I need to go, just faster than I’d ever gone. I didn’t want to embarrass myself—didn’t want to be last. Instead of running toward something, I ran away from disgrace and won the first run by seven seconds. It worked that day. Today, I’m in the same position. I don’t know how fast I need to go. I don’t want to embarrass myself. Maybe it will work again. Nobody expects me to win. I have no expectations and only one fear. I don’t want to embarrass myself.

Yesterday’s sunny, fifty-degree temperatures have turned wintery. Snow blows in shards. The sun hides behind a fortress of grey clouds. This is ski racing—stripping down while the wind funnels snow in my face. I fight the cold with movement, hoping to keep the chill and my nerves separate. It was a dance I’d learned long ago, bouncing around at the start. Someone always asks if I am cold. No, but I can’t stop moving.

This is a pro-style race—two identical courses side by side—a whittling of the field down to one winner, but first we need to qualify the top sixteen. Four from each course qualify from first run. Four from each that didn’t advance in the first run, make it from the second one. Three bumps segment the course. In years past they’d been legitimate pro bumps, with square front faces and drops-offs of at least four feet. This year’s bumps qualified as rolls. We’d catch a little air, but not the spine shortening jumps of the past. In part, that’s why I’d agreed to come. When I inspected the course, I checked out the rolls and pushed ten to twenty feet up from each to check out the line—to really know where I was going. There were five turns above the top bump, then the six most technical and important turns before the second bump. I knew I needed to ski well there to carry speed onto the flatter five turns. The four turns into the finish were straighter on the red course than the blue. It’s not so much that they were straighter as that there was that fall-away on the blue side. I’d raced and trained hundreds of runs on that hill at Winter Park. Every time that fall-away turn, just up from the finish, was one of the most important.

I had inspected the course knowing what I needed to do, then the start gates open and everything moves too fast. The course comes at me. I go over the first bump and fall low on the line before I remember that these are the important turns. Instead of finishing my turn at the gate, I start it there, hoping somehow to get back on line. The second bump comes up just as I finish my turn. I think, that’s no way to carry speed onto the flats, and then admonish myself for wasting time thinking. The fall-away comes as a surprise. I know it’s there, but the run is noisy in my head. I can’t turn my mind off and can’t get it to focus. Even though four men from each course would qualify from the first run, they send us all to the start again without any knowledge of the times. I worry that I didn’t qualify on the first run and that if I crash on the second run that I might not make the actual race. I might waste the whole trip here.

The red course looked faster on inspection and my run feels better. I hit the important turns and carry more speed onto the flats. The announcer still doesn’t call out times. I have no idea how I’ve done and worry that I won’t be one of the sixteen. Finally, Erik Peterson, the coach calls out the qualifiers. My name is about eighth or ninth. Was I in the middle of the pack? Did the people called first beat me, or did the ones after me? The list confuses me because fast people seemed spread throughout.

Almost all of the competitors are current athletes, many just returning from World Cups in Japan. I’d thought that some of my contemporaries would return. They didn’t. I race these kids and while there might be some mystique left from my career, age tempers whatever effect it might have. At the top, I learn that I qualified fourth—the fastest monoskier of the group, but I don’t feel secure. Still trying to achieve the moment, I tell myself, one round at a time, but it’s hard to quiet my mind.

I win both runs of my round of sixteen. I wonder who’s the one to beat. All weekend I’ve been trying to time the start. A display counts down from 5 to go. There seems to be a little lag between go and the gates opening. It’s strange that the element that I concentrated on becomes my undoing.

As I wait for my round of eight match, the crew attempts to get the start gates right. Finally they are right. The starter asks, “Both racers ready?” We say, “Yes,” and I look up to see the gates already open. I’m not sure if my mind drifted, but I know that I’m behind. I don’t catch up during the run. Anger grips me at the finish. I want to hit something. In qualifying I’ve proved that I can ski with these guys, but I might have just thrown it away. The announcer still doesn’t announce any times. I figure I need to go as fast as I can.

This time the countdown is at 2 when I first notice it moving. My anger flares again. Maybe this is what I need. I charge out of the gate, but when I reach the important turns I fall on my hip. Even though I bounce up quickly, I’ve lost all speed. I’m behind again. On the flats I make up time, but there is only so much room. I go straight off the last bump—too straight it turns out. I miss a gate. My day ends in the round of eight.

I entered this race because I wanted the thrill of racing, to see if I could still ski with these guys, and to make some money. I experienced the thrill, but I’m not sure that I ever made peace with it. I never found my place within the thrill. The race never slowed down for me, but it was still exciting to get into the gate again. In qualifying, I proved that I can still ski with these guys. The thrill and my skill level might indicate that I should race some more, but the reason I stopped is the reason I won’t race more. My heart still isn’t in it the way that it should be.

I probably came to this race more to make money than I wanted to admit and there’s probably some poetic justice to the way it turned out. I ended up dead even for the weekend. The cost of gas, the entry fee, and my 10% donation to One Revolution’s wheelchair donation exactly equaled the $330 that I won. To continue the poetic significance, or at least what I’m calling poetic significance, ten percent of my $330 winnings is $33. Originally, I thought it wasn’t enough. I had visions of donating $200 to $400, but then I noticed the 3’s—the threes that I look for when I get on a chair lift and the ones in the date that I hope to summit Kili. 3/13/09. Maybe $33 isn’t much, but it’s significant.

A slogan from a No Fear t-shirt keeps running through my mind, “The Older I get the Faster I was.” Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve watched some races, World Cups and NorAms, and thought I could still be in there. I neglected to remember that I haven’t trained, haven’t raced a World Cup since 2002, haven’t won a World Cup since 2000, haven’t raced a NorAm since 2004, so four years later who do I think I am? Is this a case of “The Older I get the Faster I was?”

My nerves are starting to wake up. After thirty years of ski racing the pattern is still the same. I rarely need to set an alarm because I’m usually up before it rings. This morning, I woke at 4:20, though stayed in bed until 5:30. Nerves. It’s not just because this is my first race in four years. I get them all the time—at the fundraising races, the corporate challenges, the celebrity events (I do my best to play the part of a celebrity occasionally). People are surprised that I get nervous for those events. I get nervous running a Nastar course with my friends and I hope that never changes. If the nerves leave there won’t be any reason to race because it doesn’t matter. And now it still matters. I love that natural chemical high.

Just the thrill of racing is part of the reason that I decided to come to this race. Another part is that I feel like I’m skiing pretty well and there is really only one way to find out if that’s the case—get into the starting gate. The third part is that the coach here at Winter Park said that the field wouldn’t be very deep since a lot of the US Team skiers were going straight from the World Cups to the US Nationals in Idaho, leaving the door open for people like me to make some money. That’s the third reason that I showed up—to try to make some money.

Racing for money never used to feel right. I’d started ski racing at six and would do it for free, but when I first started on the US Disabled Ski Team, ski racing became my job and it didn’t pay too well. Most years I made less than $20,000 in sponsorship, but then there was prize money. Approaching the first event where I thought I had a chance to finish in the cash, I couldn’t sleep. It was $800 to win each race and three races for the weekend. $2,400 would keep me in sushi for a long time, but it posed a dilemma because I wanted the sport and my pursuit of the top spot in the world to be pure. As I lay in bed unable to sleep, I made a pact with myself. I would give away 10% of whatever prize money I made.

That weekend in Park City back in 1993 I beat Jim Martinson for the first time. Along with Dave Kiley, Jim was the fastest monoskier in the world. Dave had had better results at the Paralympics in Tignes, France in 1992, but when Jim was on, he was the fastest. I beat him that weekend. I also won $2,400 hundred dollars. Usually, I give my money to a charity, but that first time I sent my brother a nice birthday present. He was in college and running short on funds.

This weekend, I’ve decided that if I win any money I will donate 10% to our fund for wheelchairs in Tanzania. One of the main initiatives for the climb is to provide opportunity. Ten percent of what I make this weekend starts to make that opportunity a reality. It won’t be much, even if I win, but I’m happy to know that my money will be the very first.

I thought that this morning was qualifying for the actual race. It turns out there is no serious racing until Sunday, when we will do both qualifying and the finals. I hoped to have some news to report, or at least an idea of where I stand at the moment, but no such luck. I will try to let you know how it goes on Sunday, but probably won’t be able to report until Monday morning. I have a seven and a half hour return drive after the race on Sunday. We’ll see if I have any speed or just memories.

On February 29^th I head to Winter Park, Colorado for my first ski race in about four years. It will be a pro-format race, which means duel, side-by-side courses, and single elimination until there is only one left standing. After my accident I went to Winter Park, the Mecca for American disabled skiing. It was the first time I saw a group of disabled racers. At the time, I could barely make it down the hill, but that didn’t stop me from trumpeting my future. I was twenty-one and knew everything. Now, I’m returning, almost forty, and I realize that I don’t know too much.

One of my favorite quotes is from Mark Twain, who said,

            “When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant it was painful to be around him, but by the time I turned twenty-one, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” I thought I knew everything then. I predicted that I’d be the best in the world. Maybe I  did know a fair amount, but maybe I know a whole lot more now than I think I do. Maybe like Mark Twain’s dad, I’ve learned a lot in the years since.

Winter Park was the site of one of my greatest victories. In the Giant Slalom in 1993, I beat Dave Kiley, then the greatest monoskier in the world. Just the year before at the Paralympics I listened to Kiley work one of the better psych jobs ever. Swiss skier, Jacques Blanc sat just a half second behind Kiley after the first run of the GS. Prodding for information, Blanc asked Kiley about his run. Dave said his run was good, neglecting to mention that he’d gone down on his hip mid-run. Blanc’s confidence swelled. Then Dave beat him by three seconds the second run.

I wasn’t even close enough that they knew I was in the race, but a year later I beat Dave both runs of the GS. It was an important step in becoming the best in the world, but even more gratifying was watching the video the next summer. Our coaches usually turned off the sound when we watched video for obvious reasons. As I passed through the frame of video, Stephan Hienzsch let out an exuberant “Whoohoo.” At the start of my US Disabled Ski Team career, Stephan had made me feel like a beginner. He had a European approach that never found my skiing to be good enough. He never gave out a compliment, and here was this unabashed exclamation. I’d arrived.

But, that was a long time ago—back when skiing had been my primary focus. I started when I was six and ran my last race when I thirty-five. Thirty years of ski racing is a long time. It’s longer than I spent in school—longer than I did anything. When I retired I knew I had to do something else. The love for the sport had slipped from my heart. I didn’t want to denigrate it by continuing, but there’s still a part of me that searches for the perfect turn.

I think I’m skiing better than I ever have, which is partially the result of  the surgery I had two and half years ago to straighten a scoliosis. I say that I think I’m skiing better, but I don’t know for sure. Part of me wants to know and part doesn’t. Dave Kiley was a notch on my belt that day at Winter Park. I don’t want to be a notch on someone else’s belt. I won the last time I raced, beating all the US Team guys. I hadn’t become a notch on someone’s belt, though maybe that accelerated my retirement, because I knew that it was only a matter of time before some twenty-one year old, who thought he knew everything, beat me. So as I enter this race, I think this could be the time, but I also worry that maybe I’ll be good. Maybe I’ll beat everyone and then I’ll have thoughts that I want to return—that I want to win and that I want to renew my quest for that perfect turn. Then I remember what I learned when I retired from competition. Skiing is fun. That’s something I lost when I raced and I don’t want to lose it again. We’ll see who becomes notch on whose belt.

I apologize for not writing more. I’ve been thinking and planning for the climb a lot. My question remains the same as one I had as an athlete: How do I make a long lasting impression? I used to blame Paralympic organizers and sponsors because they didn’t do enough.  We weren’t on television. They didn’t use us in commercials. We remained invisible. Paralympic sport moved the people who saw it, yet our reach was limited. Well, now it’s my turn and I might not get another chance. I have chosen to climb Mt Kilimanjaro because it’s the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, because no unassisted para has reached the top, and because the story of climbing a mountain is easier to understand than winning a Paralympic gold medal. But, I still have to tell the story and if we rush for the originally planned June ’08, we will compromise our ability to do it. As a result, we’ve postponed the climb to 2009. No specific date has been set, but I would like to target March 13, 2009, the day that marks half my life walking and half in a chair—my half-life. Plus, I’ve always been attracted to the numbers: 3, 9, and 13.

To tell the story we need visibility. I pledge to publish a blog every Friday from here on out. The website will be important too, but in order to make the necessary impression we need to move beyond the ordinary. We’ve had encouraging movement on both a documentary film and a television series, though the process has taken significantly longer than I anticipated. Sponsorship has lagged as well, mostly because we’ve chosen to move slowly—insuring that we are prepared before we approach corporate partners. The movie, TV and corporate sponsorship/partnership will be central to our success. We need to tell our story on a grander scale if we want people to notice.

In 2002 a group of athletes petitioned to make the Paralympic team. I don’t think that it went to court, but it was contentious. One of the athletes stated her case to some of us. She spoke in glowing terms about why she wanted to make the team. The Paralympics represented the pinnacle, like going to the Olympics. Much of me agreed with her or wanted to agree with her, but I said, “No one cares.” I didn’t say it to hurt her, but to illustrate our situation. Throughout that whole year, I’d worked for recognition for the Paralympics. I fully believed that it was great sport and great entertainment, but in my heart I knew that we’d be forgotten the moment the Games ended. We were fighting an uphill battle. Some people would enjoy the Paralympics and we’d be thankful for that, but afterwards we’d drift back to anonymity. It was the harsh truth—a truth that I didn’t want to admit to myself. I said, “No one cares,” but I meant, “ It’s up to you as it’s up to the rest of us to make someone care. The goal is not making the Paralympics. The goal is making someone care—making us relevant.” The assumption that no one cared was closer to the truth than not. Her job, like the rest of ours, was to make someone care. Could she do that? Could any of us do it?

I’m not sure if any of us can make people care. The US is a land of football, basketball and baseball. No one can tell us what we’re supposed to like. No one can tell us what’s right. Sport is entertainment. We watch to enjoy, to forget, to dream, and to imagine ourselves trading places with our heroes—to imagine ourselves as the hero. I love that. I love that watching sports gives us the opportunity to share a victory with our heroes. Their victory is our victory because we are all human beings. Their success hints at the possibilities for mankind. Will Paralympians ever be heroes on par with Ali, Williams, Montana, Spitz, Owens or Lewis? I don’t know. I do know that the only reason those people became our heroes was because we learned who they were. If no one ever watched them—if they never achieved the world stage, then they wouldn’t be our heroes. My goal isn’t to become your hero, but to introduce you to a group of people. A member of this group might become your hero just because you get to know him or her.