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Heroes Take Opportunity for Call to Action
By Meredy Fullen In the O&P industry, there is no shortage of
individuals who can offer us inspiration; they are all around us.
While some move in quiet circles, humbly avoiding the revealing
spotlight, some take center stage, proclaiming their mission and
purpose with a fervor that can permeate whoever is paying
attention.
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Oprah embraces Arthur Ashe Courage Award winners Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah (left) and Jim MacLaren. Photo courtesy of ESPN Photodesk. |
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The stories are countless, yet often forgotten,
unless fortunate enough to get picked up in the mainstream media,
such as the stories that come by way of Jim MacLaren and Emmanuel
Ofosu Yeboah.
Embracing the Call to Action
Jim MacLaren is a Yale graduate and former All-American in
lacrosse and football. At the age of 22, he was struck by a bus
while riding his motorcycle, causing the loss of his left leg below
the knee. Despite this accident, MacLaren rejoined the athletic
arena, becoming a top marathon runner, an Ironman triathlete, and
one of the original Team Ossur members, earning the title of
fastest endurance amputee athlete in the world. Eight years after
his first accident while competing in a triathlon, MacLaren was
struck by a van, and this time left him an incomplete quadriplegic,
confined to a wheelchair.
With a desire to help MacLaren offset the expenses of a
specialized vehicle needed to ensure his independence, a group of
friends organized the first annual San Diego Triathlon Challenge
(SDTC), giving wings to what became the Challenged Athletes
Foundation (CAF), Del Mar, California. CAF has since become a very
successful nonprofit organization that financially assists athletes
with disabilities. The SDTC, held annually on the first Sunday of
November (sometimes the last Sunday in October) in La Jolla Cove,
is now CAF's premier event, drawing the participation of many
celebrities from a variety of professional sports and Hollywood.
This event also presents an overwhelmingly successful fundraising
capability, raising over one million dollars in its 11th season
last year.
The strange twist of fate is that, if not for tragedy striking
MacLaren that second time, the CAF would not exist, and we may
never have learned of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah.
A Gift from Ghana
The EDGE first reported portions of Yeboah's remarkable
story last year, which can be found in the online archives of the
May and August 2004
issues.
 In Ghana, ten percent of the population is
disabled by deformities at birth or by disease. This portion of the
population is considered cursed, and many disabled children are
abandoned in the wilderness by their parents, left to die.
Born without a tibia in a severely deformed right leg, Yeboah
was abandoned by his father, and his mother's friends urged her to
kill or abandon her first-born son. Instead, his mother raised him
alone and even enrolled him in school. Oprah Winfrey, who has taken
an interest in Yeboah and understands the weight of his mother's
decision, described this as "a radical choice."
Yeboah credits his mother, Comfort Yeboah, who died on Christmas
Eve in 1997, for his resolve. He says, "My mother said, 'don't let
anybody put you down because of your disability.' What my mother
told me was a gift. I want to show everyone that physically
challenged people can do something."
As if by some miracle, Yeboah heard of the CAF and Jim
MacLaren's story. He wrote them the first letter he had ever
written, asking the organization to provide him with a bicycle so
he could make a one-legged, 400-mile journey across Ghana to change
people's perceptions about the disabled. Impressed by his resolve,
CAF happily fulfilled his request, and then some.
From his first contact with CAF, Yeboah's story has grown to
legendary proportions and his blessings too many to mention. He was
the 2003 recipient of the Nike Casey Martin Award which, coupled
with a matching grant from CAF, has enabled him to establish a
number of foundations and assistance programs in Ghana. He was the
first person with a disability to be invited to visit a royal
palace in Ghana, which shattered a long-standing stereotype of the
disabled in his nation.
He received an amputation surgery and prosthetic care, which
allowed him to return to Ghana, wearing long pants and walking on
two legs, into his home church for the first time in his life. He
married and began a family of his own, and his life became the
subject of an award-winning documentary film called "Emmanuel's
Gift," narrated by Winfrey, written, produced, and directed by Lisa
Lax and Nancy Stern. The film is set to appear in select cities in
the US this month.
Most recently, Yeboah and MacLaren, who considers himself
Yeboah's brother in spirit, were each presented ESPN's prestigious
Arthur Ashe Courage Award at this year's ESPY Award Ceremony at the
Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California.
And the ESPY Goes to...
The ESPY Awards are an annual opportunity offered by the
Entertainment Sports Premier Network (ESPN) to honor the legends of
American sports. The night is a celebration of unforgettable
moments, top performers, and achievements. This was ESPN's 13th
ESPY ceremony and the second year that the fans determined the
winners by an online voting format. In fact, ESPN called upon
The O&P EDGE for its online presence to link to live
ESPY voting, since two of the award categories involved athletes
from the O&P industry.
In addition to the usual ESPY categories, the Arthur Ashe
Courage Award is generally presented to individuals whose
contributions transcend sports.
Winfrey delivered a poignant presentation, in typical Oprah
fashion, nothing less than anyone would have expected from the
nation's leading icon of daytime television. And the nation watched
as the giants of sports, such as Bill Walton, Curt Schilling,
Dwayne Wade, and Peyton Manning were moved to tears by the true
heroism displayed by these two gentlemen. The standing ovation upon
introduction of them must have lasted a full 60 seconds, which is a
lifetime in television and film.
Perhaps no one understood the significance of this moment more
clearly than Tabi King, Ossur's marketing communications manager,
and her fellow board members and colleagues at the CAF. King
acknowledged the persistence required to gain the attention of an
icon like Winfrey. "For many marketers, this is the pinnacle of
public relations, and many are too familiar with the scores of
rejection letters it takes to get one that says 'maybe.'" But King
says she continued to bang the drum and tell the stories for this
reason: "Through Jim and Emmanuel and so many others who prove
every day that no mountain is too high, the world of sports has
saluted the efforts of this industry. By this we can be motivated
to continue research and develop new technology. In a year that the
Paralympic Games received no [mainstream US] media attention, to be
saluted on what has become sports' greatest day is something in
which we can all take great pride. Mobility is a priceless gift. It
is ours to give, and we should be proud."
The Definition of a Hero
We live in a time where our society looks to entertainment and
sports for heroes and role models. Peter Gibbon, author of A
Call to Heroism, believes that today's heroes have fallen on
hard times, and describes "hero" as a silver-dollar word that has
been reduced to nickel-and-dime status, due to the public's choice
to look most often to entertainers and athletes with zillion-dollar
contracts.
Gibbon says he finds it increasingly difficult to define the
word "hero" for youngsters, but lists three characteristics he
believes necessary: extraordinary achievement, courage, and the
ability to serve as a model.
Given this definition, we look to an article in the September
19, 1994, edition of Sports Illustrated titled "Slow Train
to Eminence," written by S.L. Price, on the life and death of
Arthur Ashe. Ashe was the first African-American man to win the US
Open and Wimbledon tennis titles. However, it was not his ability
on the court that elevated Ashe to heroism. Forced to retire from
tennis due to heart problems, Ashe contracted AIDS from a tainted
blood transfusion during one of his surgeries, and from this he
reluctantly became a spokesperson and fundraiser for the disease,
accepting this as his purpose.
Price describes Ashe as achieving a rare greatness, becoming the
first sportsman in memory to be honored by the tribute of lying in
state, while literally thousands waited in line to say goodbye.
Price wrote, "Sport is the American factory for children's heroes
because kids play games; they can relate and be awed. But Ashe was
a rarer kind of hero, an example of what to do when the playing
stops, a role model for the adults&The typical champion spends
his remaining years in a kind of endless cast party, full of
backslaps and soggy nostalgia. Not Ashe. He showed how, at career's
end, not to be pathetic."
Such is the case with MacLaren and Yeboah.
In an article appearing on ESPN.com, Greg Garber quotes Pulitzer
Prize-winning writer for the Chicago Tribune, Clarence
Page, on Ashe. "Arthur Ashe was a fellow who was not only
appropriate to break the color barrier in his sport, but understood
the larger significance of his achievement. You cannot
underestimate the power that sport has for social change. It has a
great visceral impact on our culture." Page continued, "Arthur Ashe
went beyond sport to advance history." This is why the ESPY Courage
Award is named for Arthur Ashe, and this is why this award is
important to the recognition of O&P.
The Power of Purpose
When a rare but indelible and defining moment like winning an
ESPY happens in our industry to one of "ours," do we view it as a
fleeting moment that simply brings us joy in the very instance that
it exists, or do we take it to heart, fully giving way to its
potential to live in our gut and stir within us our own call to
action?
We are human, we have inherent flaws, and we often get caught up
in the day-to-day grind and the uncertainties caused by the
challenges that lie before us, and we can forget what truly
motivates us, why we do what we do, why we work.
Author Peggy Noonan wrote, in an article for the May/June 2000
issue of O Magazine called Why We Work So Hard,
"Work is a way of creating and contributing; it is a giving to the
world... It is a yielding up and showing, whatever it is
you did"--the bestmade product, the best-written marketing plan,
the best-fitting prosthetic socket you had within you.
According to Noonan, work can be the bestower of moments when
you do it well. She further explains that it's not just for the
money that we work, she says, "There's something else, something
wonderful we are searching for."
When you are wondering what that "something wonderful" is that
you are searching for, look no further than these moments in the
lives of two O&P patients served by your industry being honored
by the very people our society chooses to celebrate as today's
heroes and icons. This year MacLaren and Yeboah reign together as
the heroes of heroes. This year it is collectively your work, and
MacLaren's work, and Yeboah's work that embodies the true measure
of heroism--extraordinary achievement, courage, and the ability to
serve as a model. Recognize this moment for O&P as truly golden
in reminding us of the power of purpose.
Table Of Contents - October 2005
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