Name: ____________________________

9th Grade Text Set 3rd 6 Weeks

Do great athletes always win?

“Jesse Owens of the USA, far right, at the start of a race at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.” (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images) ­­ Image Date: 01/08/1936. EBSCO.

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

Table of Contents

1. “Is This the Most Hated Athlete of All Time?” 2. “Bigger, Faster and, Yes, Sometimes Dirtier” 3. “Tonya’s Theme” 4. “Blind to Failure” 5. “A Different Level of Competition” (Paired

Close Read) 6. “Determination in Motion” (Paired Close

Read) 7. Bo Jackson Talks about Injury 8. “Lou Gehrig: Farewell to Baseball” 9. “The Legacy of Lou”

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

What will athletes risk in order to win?

“Is This the Most Hated Athlete of All Time?”

“Bigger, Faster and, Yes, Sometimes Dirtier”

“Tonya’s Theme”

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

Nonfiction

Lance Armstrong was once a beloved sports hero— until the shocking truth came out. b y a d e e b r a u n

Liar. Bully. Disgrace. Cold-blooded.

Ruthless.

These are just some of the many words that have been used to describe him. No, he is not a murderer or a dictator or even one of the Dance Moms.

He is cyclist Lance Armstrong—once one of the most adored athletes in America. Fans would wait for hours during his races just to see him flash by on his bike. He starred in commercials and smiled from magazine covers and cereal boxes. He attended

3 glamorous parties and dated a rock star. He even hungD

t out with the president. He was living a dream life, j Then it all came crashing down.

How did Lance Armstrong go from being one of the most admired athletes the world has ever seen to being one of the most reviled? It turns out, he was hiding a dark secret: He was a cheater.

S tro n g e r and F a s te rFrom the moment he could walk, Armstrong

seemed to be a natural athlete. In his hometown of Plano, Texas, he excelled at football, swimming, and running. But cycling was where he really shone. His coaches expected great things from him, and he didn’t disappoint. By the age of 21, he was cycling for the U.S. Olympic team. But it wasn’t until he won the most competitive race in world cycling—the Tour de France—that he became a superstar.

The Tour de France is a grueling race that

S C O P E .S C H O LA S m .C O M • OCTOBER 2015 17

lasts for three weeks and stretches across more than 2,000 miles (that’s the distance from L.A. to Chicago) of some very mountainous terrain. Winning the race for the first time in 1999 propelled Armstrong to stardom. When people found out that he had survived cancer two years earlier, his popularity grew. Not only was he a champion athlete, but he was also an inspiration to people around the world. Big sponsors like Nike paid him millions of dollars. The cancer research organization that he started, the Livestrong Foundation, raised more than $500 million and turned yellow rubber Livestrong bracelets into a hot fashion trend.

What few could have imagined was that Armstrong, the dazzling hero, was a fraud. For years, he had been taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to make his body leaner and stronger so he could race faster and longer. This is known as doping and it is against the rules in cycling.

Dangerous DrugsAlmost all competitive

athletes try to gain an edge. They buy the best gear, hire expensive trainers, and follow punishing diet and fitness regimens. (At the ancient Greek Olympics, athletes feasted on the manure of wild boars because they thought it would help them win.)

Some athletes choose to go further in their quest for greatness, crossing both moral and legal lines into the world of doping. PEDs give competitors an unfair advantage. They are also extremely dangerous.Doping has been linked

to cancer, stroke, heart attack, depression, and suicide.Doping scandals have blighted many sports,

including baseball, football, and Olympic track and field. But doping is especially rampant in international cycling. Armstrong would later say that if he wanted to stay on top, he had no choice but to take PEDs.

An Unstoppable ForceDuring his years of doping, Armstrong became an

unstoppable force. From 1999 to 2005, he won the Tour de France a record seven times. His fans were dazzled by his superhuman strength and discipline. Some people, though, were convinced that he had to be doping—and said so publicly.

Armstrong met each accusation with furious denials, and he used his status as a celebrity and cancer survivor to humiliate and silence his accusers. Meanwhile, he had a system for doping that was staggering in both its sophistication and connivance. He enlisted helpers to hide PEDs in white paper lunch bags and sneak them into his hotel room during races. He had his trainer

ARE THEY ALL CHEATERS? L an ce A rm s tro n g a n d o th e r c y c lis ts h av e s ta te d t h a t

d o p in g w as so c o m m o n in c y c lin g t h a t to b e c o m p e t i t iv e , th e y h ad no c h o ic e b u t to d o p e . B u t is

t h a t r e a l ly a v a l id re a s o n to b re a k t h e ru le s ?

18 SCHOLASTIC SCOPE • OCTOBER 2015

PA

SC

AL

PA

VA

NI/A

FP/G

ETT

Y I

MAG

ES

DA

ILY

NEW

S (D

AIL

Y N

EWS

CO

VER

); A

LES

SA

ND

RO

TR

OV

ATI

/AP

IM

AGES

(FL

OY

D L

AN

DIS

)

_ LANCE ARMSTRONGWins His Filth Tour <ie France

plus NFL TRAININGCAMP REPORT

ST H IM

FALL FROM THE TOPLance Armstrong's reputation has been completely destroyed and he has been banned from cycling forever. Does he deserve what has happened to him?

inject the drugs into his arm and dump the syringes 60 miles away. If a drug tester came snooping, he dodged the test by dropping out of the race.

Armstrong wasn’t content risking only his own reputation and health, however. In cycling, a team leader—like Armstrong—is supported by a team of other cyclists who ride alongside him, doing everything they can to help the leader win. Armstrong insisted that his teammates use PEDs as well, informing them that anyone who refused to dope would be kicked off the team. Nobody refused.

Bullying became Armstrong’s most effective defensive tactic. If a journalist wrote a story accusing him of doping, Armstrong sued. If a cyclist suggested he was using banned substances, he destroyed that cyclist’s reputation by spreading untrue rumors.

Armstrong’s tactics were so successful * that he felt invincible. His adoring fans stayed by his side, and in 2008, three years after retiring from professional cycling, he announced that he was returning to go for another Tour de

Floyd Landis won the Tour de France

in 2006 but was stripped of his title

after he failed a drug test.

WRITING CONTEST

France win. His secret, it seemed, was safe.But no secret can stay hidden forever.

In R u in sArmstrong’s unraveling began in 2010, when former

teammate Floyd Landis came forward about the doping on Armstrong’s team. As usual, Armstrong responded by spreading vicious lies, hoping to discredit Landis.

This time, however, tenacious federal agents decided to launch an aggressive investigation. Armstrong tried to shut down the investigation, even calling on powerful friends in Washington, D.C., for help. But it was too late. Dozens of former teammates, trainers, and others came forward with appalling stories of Armstrong’s cheating. On October 10,2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency released a shocking 1,000-page report that revealed, in graphic detail, how Armstrong had fooled the world. He was quickly stripped of all seven Tour de France titles, forced to return the bronze Olympic medal he won in 2000, and banned from cycling forever. He was sued for millions of dollars, his sponsors dropped him, and he stepped down as the head of Livestrong.

Still, it took more than a year for Armstrong to come clean to the public. It wasn’t until January 2013, in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, that he finally

admitted he had lied about doping. Since then, Armstrong has apologized to those who were most gravely hurt by his schemes. His victims, though, have been slow to forgive— and they have good reason to question his

sincerity.Today, even as Armstrong faces further legal

action, he’s working to get his lifetime ban from cycling lifted. He also believes that his Tour de France titles should be restored.

As for the doping? He says, “If you take me back to 1995 ... I’d probably do it again.” •

If you're invincible, it means you can never be defeated. In what ways did Arachne and Lance Armstrong believe they were invincible? How did that lead to their downfalls? Answer both questions in a short essay. Send it to INVINCIBLE CONTEST. Five winners will each get Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick. See page 2 for details.

SC0PE.SCH0LASTIC.COM • OCTOBER 2015

FRONTROW

FROM THE EDITOR

GARRY D. HOWARDghoward(S)sportingnews.com

twitter.com/SN^GarryD

BIGGER, FASTER AND, YES,SOMETIMES DIRTIER 'WE COULDN'T DO A "BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER" ISSUEWITHOUT ADDRESSING THE DARK SIDE OF ATHLETES'OUEST TO GET AHEAD

I

When she reached the turn in the women's200-meter final in Sydney, Australia, MarionJones was clearly, brilliantly on her way togreatness.

In the time it took to run that race—21.84seconds—she epitomized bigger, faster,stronger. But little did I know, Marion Joneswas going to break my heart.

Oh, no, not on that glorious evening,with the whole world on her side, televisioncameras focused on her face and tensof thousands of Olympic fans on handscreaming until their lungs burst.

No, on that night, Marion Jones had mescrambling, with a smile. There was sucha sense of urgency as she continued herquest to win five medals at the 2000 SydneyGames. After her second gold in as manyevents, everyone wanted to know how shefelt, whether she was overwhelmed. Couldshe even breathe? The moment was big, onan international stage like no other.

After navigating through a throng to thebowels of Olympic Stadium, built at a costof $690 million expressly for these Games, Ifound myself behind the 8-ball... the crowdof reporters was way too thick, and therewas no way I was going to get a quote for mycolumn. I ventured left so I could at least getnext to the metal fence separating the pressfrom the athletes. But I was at least 10 metersfrom Marion.

I screamed her name, and suddenly, shemade her way over and stopped right in frontof me. Marion kindly answered not one, nottwo but three of my questions, making my dayOlympic-size. It was off to the press area towrite, with that smile still plastered on my face.

Covering an event of that magnitude isexhilarating—no, priceless. Getting the exactquote to support the angle you've chosen issublime. And I had done both.

But... none of us who covered thoseSydney Games had a clue that Marion Joneshad at that very moment scrapped herOlympic ideals for tainted glory.

The world would later find out that shehad not only disgraced herself and her sportby injecting performance-enhancing drugsbut that she had lied about it to federalagents, relegating herself to ignominy for theremainder of her life.

She had announced beforehand that fivegold medals was her goal in Sydney, and sheleft with three gold and two bronze, becomingthe first woman to win five medals at a singleOlympics.

But on the way, she forfeited her soul.After repeated denials that she had used

performance-enhancing drugs, Marion Jonesshowed up at a news conference in Octoberof 2007 and broke down in tears, apologizingprofusely for her overt sins. She admitted:"I stand before you and tell you that I havebetrayed your trust."

What she did was remind us that despite allof the tremendous talent with which she wasborn, Marion Jones was fallible.

She fell prey to greed. It led her to believethat her trainer, Trevor Graham, couldmake her better, illegally. Greed led her tobankruptcy and subsequently to prison,turning the icon into a shell of her former self.

Greed, in the end, turned Marion Jonesfrom a winner Into a pariah.

It was a hard lesson to learn in 21.84 seconds.

In 2000, Jones took abow as one of the starsof the Sydney Games,winning the women's200 meters and takinghome five medals.Seven years later, afterpleading guilty to lyingto investigators abouther use of performance-enhancing drugs,her head was bowedin shame.

13

6 REAL INSIGHT. REAL FANS. REAL CONVERSATIONS. JANUARY 2012

WASHINGTON

DIARISTTonya's themeDON'T GET ME WRONG. I DO FEELsorry for Tonya Harding. I do think she isa victim of her environment, and that herstory is a sad comment on modern Amer-ica. But I disagree with some Hardingsympathists about which parts of herenvironment she's a victim of and whatthe comment is.

THE PIONEERING PIECE OF SYMPA-thy for Harding is a much discussed andpowerfully written Neio York Times op-edpiece by Frank Rich. In Rich's view theculprit is a cultural elitism that made thelow-life Harding a hopeless candidate forbig endorsement contracts. "Her cos-tumes reeked of polyester. Her choice ofskating music was not Swan Lakehui thetheme from Jurassic Park. She was knownfor mannish habits: shooting pool, curs-ing, repairing cars, shooting deer." Longbefore the Nancy Kerrigan assault, Hard-ing discovered that "though she couldwin on ice, she never won the expectedprize, multimillion-dollar contracts toendorse producLs." This revelation, saysRich, turned a good girl into a bad girl."As Tonya Harding, condemned as white-trash lowlife, is tossed unceremoniouslyinto the garbage, it is worth noting thatbefore she surrounded herself withthtigs, she played by rules as all-Americanas Rocky. Imagine, if only for a moment,how she must have felt when late in thegame she learned that for her they didnot apply."

IMAGINATION IS INDEED WHAT ITwill take to create this moment, because itnever happened in real life. Harding didthink skating judges were biased towardKerrigan, thus making victory difficult,but she never doubted that victory wouldmean big money. The whole idea behindthe plot to cripple Kerrigan was that anOlympic medal would bring the "dollarsigns" Harding openly coveted. Richnotes gravely that Kerrigan already hasendorsement contracts, while Hardingdoesn't. Yes, and there's something elseKerrigan has that Harding doesn't: abronze medal from the 1992 Olympics.Kerrigan beat Harding there, has beat-en her in every encounter since, and isthe much more likely 1994 medalist.Rich cites a ,V^' York Times article inwhich a marketing expert says of Hard-

ing, "She's got asthma and smokes inpublic. That might not turn on anybodyexcept Philip Morris." Btit the sameexpert, in the same article, also said, "Atough kid wouldn't be good for Rolex,but she'd be a fit for Tiniex. You can'thave her for Gadillac, but maybe you canhave her for Jeep." Of course, Kerrigan'slooks make her an unusually lucrativepackage, and a gold medal for her mightwell be worth more than one for Hard-ing. But if you think Harding's humbleorigins would be a problem—that atough girl's trip from trailer park toOlytnpic pedestal doesn't equal seven fig-ures—you must be getting Americamixed up with some othercountry. In 1991, whenJohn Daly appeared on thegolf scene (a world as gen-teel as figtire skating), helooked and sounded likehe bad come straight fromthe set oi Deliverance. Aftershocking everyone by win-ning the PCA title—and, onnational T.v., smoking ciga- °^rettes between shots—he made moreendorsement money in less time than anyrookie in the sport's history; he even gota contract with Reebok, the Kerrigansponsor now cast as elitist.

THE PEOPLE WHO HAND OUT EN-dorsement money are not just culturallyneutral but, often, morally neutral. Wit-ness whiner John McEnroe, who rou-tinely beratecl mild-mannered, low-paidofficials, or skinhead linebacker BrianBosworth, who signed with Gillette forRight Guard ads after being suspendedfor steroid use. The most famous case isbehemoth boopster Charles Barkley,noted for barroom brawls, talking trashon the court, spitting at a heckling fan(he missed and bit a little girl) andembarrassing America by beating up on ascrawny member of the hapless Angolanbasketball team during the 1992 Olympic"dream team" walkover, drawing hissesfrom the fans in Barcelona. ("How did Iknow he didn't have a spear?" Barkleyasked.) Nike has a Barkley commercialwhose theme is "I am not a role model."Clearly, Nike CEO Phil Knigbt realizes thatBarkley's badness only elevates him in theeyes of poor black kids who pay sl50 forsneakers. Meanwhile, by holding Barkleyet al. up for emulation. Knight ctits thechances that these kids will ever be ableto really afford sucb tbings (at least withlegitimate income). Talking trash doesn'tgo very far in a job interview. And that'snotjust a throwaway line; a big economichurdle facing inner-city kids is their cul-tural aversion to a tool that most of ushave shamelessly exploited at some pointin our careers: the strategic use of humil-ity and, yes, abject subservience.

NIKE AND OTHER MORALLY NUMBimage-makers bave one otber maligneffect: to belp create Tonya Hardings.She did what sbe did because she hadlearned a lesson of modern America, andthe lesson is exactly the opposite of theone Rich thinks she learned. It's that win-ning is everything and can get you any-thing. Harding had for some time beenproudly calling herself the C-harlesBarkley of figure skating. Of course, sheseems to have gone too far on the bad-ness front; trying to cripple a competi-tor violates even the loose standards ofpop morality (thotigh Nike, playingthe populist card against Reebok, has set

up a Tonya Harding de-fense fund). And, for thatmatter, a few prospectivesponsors might haveshunned Tonya's imageeven absent the taint fromthe Kerrigan scandal. Butthe reason wouldn't bethe things Ricb cites—polyester, shooting pool,repairing cars—all of

which, to any half-decent ad-copy writer,are value-added; the reason would be thatHarding once threatened a motorist witha baseball bat for failing to take a right onred, that police had once handctiffed herafter she fired a gun in a parking lot, andso on. Now, there may be, as some bavestiggested. a kind of sexism here. Wield-ing a baseball hat menacingly might fur-ther endear Barkley to Nike; and, moregenerally, a bad girl probably attracts lessendorsement money than a comparablybad boy. But the question is: Wiich halfof this inequality should we bemoan? Is itreally so bad if violent people don't spendlots of time in T.v. commercials inspiringadtilation in kids? Or even if smokersdon't? Is this culturally elitist, since vio-lence and smoking aren't mainly upper-class pursuits? Or is it obliqtiely populist,since lower-class kids will, by the sametoken, benefit most if sucb inoralism suc-ceeds in building character?

OBVIOUSLY, NIKE COMMERCIALSweren't the prime determinant of Hard-ing's character. There was also poverty,her famotisly unstable home, etc. Ricbrightly mentions these things. And I cansee why he doesn't mention the things Imention. Talking about role models, andcalling some black athletes bad ones,does leave me feeling eerily like an agingneocon. But the easy thing for liberals todo—preach cultural relativism wheneveranyone gets morally jtidgmental—oftenends tip harming the people we claim todefend. Surely the big problem for Amer-ica today isn't that it is too discerning inthe bestowal of celebrity.

ROBERT WRIGHT

46 THE NEW REPUBLIC FEBRUARY 28,1994

What is the balance between natural

abilities and working hard?

“Blind to Failure” and “A Different Level of Competition”

Paired Close Read

“Determination in Motion”

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

From “Blind to Failure” by Karl Taro Greenfeld

1 Erik Weihenmayer, thirty­three, has been blind since he was thirteen, the victim of a rare hereditary disease of the retina. He began attacking mountains in his early twenties.

2 By all accounts, Erik is gifted with strong lungs, a refined sense of balance, a disproportionately powerful upper body, rubbery legs, and flexible ankles. His conditioning is exemplary and his heart rate low. He is stockier than most mountaineers, who tend toward lanky, long muscles. But he possesses an abundance of the one indispensable characteristic of a great mountaineer: mental toughness, the ability to withstand tremendous amounts of cold, discomfort, physical pain, boredom, bad food, insomnia, and tedious conversation when you’re snowed into a pup tent for a week on a three­foot­wide ice shelf at 20,000 feet. On Everest, toughness is perhaps the most important trait a climber can have. “Erik is mentally one of the strongest guys you will ever meet,” says fellow climber Chris Morris.

3 Scaling Everest requires the enthusiasm and boosterism of a physical education teacher combined with the survival instinct

8

of a Green Beret. You have to want that summit. And if you whine…your teammates might discard you before you get there. Erik, beneath his beard and quiet demeanor, was both booster and killer. “He was the heart and soul of our team,” says Eric Alexander. “The guy’s spirit won’t let you quit.”

4 The physical confidence that Erik projects has to do with having an athlete’s awareness of how his body moves through space. Plenty of sighted people walk through life with less poise and grace than Erik, unsure of their steps, second­guessing every move. And certainly most of the blind don’t maneuver with Erik’s aplomb.

5 With his Germanic, sculpted features and light brown hair, Erik is a celebrity now: strangers ask for his autograph, reporters call constantly, restaurants give him free meals. But is his celebrity the circus­freak variety­of a type with the Dogboy and the two­headed snake?

6 At its worst, Erik fears, it is. Casual observers don’t understand what an achievement his Everest climb was, or they assume that if a blind guy can do it, anyone can. And indeed, improved gear has made Everest, at least in some people’s minds, a bit smaller. But Everest eats the unready and the unlucky. Almost 90 percent of

9

Everest climbers fail to reach the summit. Many­at least 165 since 1953­never come home at all, their bodies lying uncollected where they fell. “People think because I’m blind, I don’t have as much to be afraid of, like if I can’t see a 2,000­foot drop­off I won’t be scared,” Erik says. “That’s insane. Look, death is death, if I can see or not.”

7 For Erik, who knew almost as soon as he could speak that he would lose his vision in his early teens, excelling as an athlete was the result of accepting his disability rather than denying it. Growing up with two brothers in Hong Kong and then Weston, Connecticut, he was always an athletic kid, a tough gamer who developed a bump­and­grind one­on­one basketball game that allowed him to work his way close to the hoop. He was, his father Ed says, “a pretty normal kid. While bike riding, he might have run into a few more parked cars than other kids, but we didn’t dwell on his going blind.”

8 For Erik, the key was acceptance­not to fight his disability but to learn to work within it; not to transcend it but to understand fully what he was capable of achieving within it; not to pretend he had sight but to build systems that allowed him to excel without it. “It’s tragic­I know blind people who like to pass themselves off as being able to see,”

10

Erik says. “What’s the point of that?” 9 Despite being an accomplished

mountaineer, Erik viewed Everest as insurmountable until he ran into Pasquale Scaturro, who had already summited Everest, had heard of the blind climber, and when they met the two struck an easy rapport. A geophysicist, Scaturro began wondering if he could put together a team that could help Erik get to the summit of Everest.

10 “Dude,” Scaturro asked, “have you ever climbed Everest?”

11 “No.” 12 “Dude, you wanna?” 13 For the Everest climb, Scaturro and

Erik assembled a team that combined veteran Everest climbers and trusted friends of Erik’s. For Erik, this was the greatest challenge of his life. If he failed, he would be letting down not just himself but all the blind, confirming that certain activities remained the preserve of the sighted.

14 When Erik and the team began the final ascent from Camp 4­the camp he describes as Dante’s Inferno with ice and wind­they had been on the mountain for two months, climbing up and down and then up from Base Camp to Camps 1, 2, and 3, getting used to the altitude and socking away

11

enough equipment to make a summit push. They had tried for the summit once but had turned back because of weather. At 29,000 feet, the Everest peak is in the jet stream, which means that winds can exceed one hundred miles per hour and what looks from sea level like a cottony wisp of cloud is actually a killer storm at the summit.

15 The weather was finally clearing as they reached the Hillary Step, the 39­foot rock face that is the last major obstacle before the true summit. Erik clambered up the cliff, belly­flopping over the top. And then it was forty­five minutes of walking up a sharply angled snow slope to the summit.

16 What Erik achieved is hard for a sighted person to comprehend. What do we compare it with? How do we relate to it? Perhaps the point is really that there is no way to put what Erik has done in perspective because no one has ever done anything like it. It is a unique achievement, one that in the truest sense pushed the limits of what man is capable of.

17 Erik says summiting Everest was great, probably the greatest experience of his life. But then he thinks about a moment a few months ago, before Everest, when he was walking down the street in Colorado with daughter Emma in a front pack. They were on their way to buy some banana

12

bread for his wife, and Emma was pulling on his hand, her little fingers curled around his index finger. That was a summit, too, he says. There are summits everywhere. You just have to know where to look.

13

9th Grade Student Copy

Text under Discussion

“A Different Level of Competition”

by Anne Stein

Vocabulary Notes

1 Here’s a secret about young guys with disabilities who play sports: They talk trash. And depending on the sport, they throw punches and crash into each other so hard that games can look like gladiator competitions.

2 In other words, a competitive athlete with a disability isn’t any less intense than a competitive athlete without a disability.

3 Take sled hockey, for example. A player balances on two ice­skating blades mounted beneath a molded plastic sled/seat. Sitting just inches above the ice, the athlete holds two small hockey sticks with

22

metal teeth on one end to whip his body and sled around the rink; the other end is used for puck­handling. The stick is rotated to hit the puck.

4 “There are games that are rougher than others, but our team tries to focus more on the puck than the body,” said Sylvester Flis, a member of the 2002 U.S. Paralympic sled hockey team. Flis, who was born with spina bifida, lives in Chicago and practices with the RIC Blackhawks, sponsored by the Chicago Blackhawks and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

5 “We don’t have big fights often, but there’s lots of pushing and shoving. You’ve got to be very strong and athletic. You have to be in shape to perform at the national level,” Flis said.

6 But fighting and body checking aren’t what draw

23

people with disabilities to sports and competition. Besides the social aspects, there is an attitude of encouragement often lacking in able­bodied athletes.

7 Matt Coppens, 30, of Richton Park lost both legs when a teenage driver ran into his car as Coppens set up roadside traffic cones.

8 Coppens wasn’t much of an athlete before the accident. Now he trains full time and will join Flis on the sled hockey team. He also represented the United States at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics in volleyball.

9 “There’s so much camaraderie here,” he said. “No matter what team you’re on, you can’t help but feel a closeness.”

10 Whether it’s competitive or recreational, sports serve an important role for people with disabilities, just as they do for the able­bodied.

24

11 “Team sports teach cooperation, sportsmanship, socialization, and how to win and lose,” says Jeff Jones, director of the Center for Health and Fitness at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. “They also teach people with disabilities to challenge themselves. There’s a phrase that’s kicked around a lot among people with disabilities: “If I can do this, I can do anything.’”

12 Jones said sled hockey players are some of the most conditioned, fit people he knows. They just happen to have a disability.

13 “They get what everyone gets out of team sports: a sense of accomplishment, enjoyment, satisfaction,conditioning and better health. And that makes everyday activities easier, just like it does for someone without a disability. They just don’t

25

happen to have as many opportunities as people without disabilities have to participate in sports,” Jones said. “Our athletes are much more appreciative of the opportunities than those without disabilities. They can’t just quit one team and go to another. The opportunities are few and far between.”

14 Jerri Voda, who was born with cerebral palsy, races sailboats each summer through the Chicago­based Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing program.

15 “It’s absolutely boosted my self­esteem,” she said. “It’s truly exhilarating for anyone with physical disabilities to participate in an activity that an able­bodied person can participate in. And the feeling of being out on the water driving a boat has totally heightened my independence

26

and made me feel capable of achieving more in the future.”

16 Nearly every sport, recreational or competitive, can be adapted to the physical capabilities of participants. Among the hundreds of sports available are wheelchair basketball, football and tennis; quadriplegic rugby; water and snow­skiing for the blind and visually impaired; and chair­based aerobics.

17 There are track and field swimming events for every category of amputee, as well as blind softball and competitions for people with cerebral palsy and head injury. There is even a fledgling soccer league worldwide played by amputees on crutches.

18 Chicagoan Sandy Dukat, 29, is a member of the U.S. disabled ski team. Born without a femur, her leg was amputated

27

at the knee at age four, but the disability never stopped her from being a jock.

19 Now Dukat’s sport is alpine skiing, where she reaches speeds up to 50 m.p.h. perched on one ski and two poles with tiny ski­like attachments called outriggers. She didn’t ski growing up in Ohio, but her fearlessness and speed caught the eye of coaches who encouraged her to train.

20 Though Dukat loves the thrill of sport, she would like to be seen as an elite athlete, not an athlete with a disability. She would also like people to stop clapping when she runs or skates along the lakefront path.

21 She said someday people won’t be shocked by the sight of her jogging with a prosthetic leg.

22 “It should be the norm. I don’t look at someone with two legs and say, ‘That’s so cool.’ It

28

shouldn’t be a surprise to see someone with a disability doing this.”

29

http://www.bjreview.com

NATION

16 BEIJING REVIEW SEPTEMBER 25, 2008

By TANG YUANKAI

She carried the flag for her country during the Olympic opening cere-mony, testimony to the high esteem in which she is held by her team,

her nation and the sporting community. And she came to Beijing determined to live her dream to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympic Games.

In South Africa, swimmer Natalie Du Toit, 24, is a heroine and an example of de-termination in motion. Losing her left leg in a motor accident seven years ago, the young woman with the swimming world at her feet set her mind on glory in the water despite this devastating setback.

This month that dream came true. At the Beijing Paralympics, Du Toit won gold in the five events she participated in—100

meters butterfly, 100 meters freestyle, 200 meters individual medley, 400 meters free-style and 50 meters freestyle, making her the most decorated athlete at the Beijing Paralympics.

But a month before Du Toit had been making headlines at the Olympics itself, when she took on the cream of the world’s able-bodied long-distance swimmers in the women’s 10 kilometers open-water marathon, the first swimming marathon in Olympic history.

It’s a tough event, characterized by jos-tling for position with no quarter asked or given. No special allowance was made for this disabled athlete. Du Toit gritted her way to 16th place, beating nine other swimmers in the field of 25, an amazing feat in itself. She immediately became a media darling.

But the road to Beijing had been one lined with obstacles.

Crushed but not beaten In her youth Du Toit was one of the

most promising swimmers in South Africa who lived for the day she could compete at the Olympics. In the 2000 Sidney Games, Du Toit, then a teenager, entered the finals of three events during the qualifiers nar-rowly missing the mark. But most people in the swimming business believed that it was just a matter of time before Du Toit took her place on the world’s biggest sporting stage. Then in 2001 her world fell apart. One her way from a training session a car reversed into Du Toit’s motor cycle, crushing her leg in the process.

Doctors spent a week trying to save her

Determination in MotionSouth African swimmer triumphs in Olympics and Paralympics

INSPIRATIONAL: South African Natalie Du Toit on her way to breaking her own Paralympics women’s 100 meters butterfly world record

CH

EN

KA

I

http://www.bjreview.com SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 BEIJING REVIEW 17

leg, but despite their best efforts the leg was eventually amputated below the knee.

At 17, Du Toit’s life changed forever. “Thatwasreallyadifficulttime.Ioftencriedin frustration,” Du Toit recalled, expressing frustration when people looked at her stump or her prosthetic leg before they looked at her face.

Her teammates expressed their compas-sion and sympathy, but all Du Toit wanted was to return to her normal life. The second day after the operation, she began to walk, and only three months later, she returned to the swimming pool, to the disbelief of her parents.

Her first attempts at swimming were traumatic as she had to learn how to bal-ance her body and exhaustion came quickly. To compensate for her leg Du Toit worked on improving her upper body strength. Everyday, after two training sessions in the pool, she also swam several km in the sea. Gradually, her left arm has gotten so strong that it has somewhat made up for the lost strength in her left leg.

Determined to pursue her Olympic dream, Du Toit took part in the 2004 Olympicqualifiersbutfailed.Withonlyoneleg, her weakness was that she could not ac-celerate or turn around very fast in the pool, whichmadeitdifficultforhertocompeteinshort distance races. In October 2005 when the International Olympic Committee de-cided to add a 10-km race in open water to the Olympics, Du Toit saw new hope. She trained harder to compete in the longer dis-tance.

Role modelDu Toit’s courage has been shared

with many South Africans. She is today an accomplished motivational speaker who in-spires young and old alike with her positive attitude. “It is important to do your own race and not someone else’s,” she often tells those who ask how she has achieved so much.

While she admits that her disability has brought about inconveniences, the message Du Toit sends to other disabled people is that “God helps those who help themselves.”

Currently, Du Toit is a student of University of Cape Town, majoring in Sport Management and Genetics. When she is not in training or school, she often goes to hospi-tal to visit and encourage disabled persons.

During her interview with Beijing Review, Du Toit revealed a secret. After the car accident, her mother received an anony-mous check from China. She said she was grateful for the care shown by the Chinese people. Du Toit expressed her sympathy for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake and wanted to tell the children there to believe in themselves and live their dreams. She plans to visit Sichuan in the future. n

Table Tennis VenusIn addition to Natalie Du Toit, another female athlete has competed in both the

Beijing Olympics and Paralympics. She is Natalia Partyka, a table tennis player who was born without her lower right arm.

Partyka ranks third in Poland and 147th in the world. Although she did not qualify for the singles event during the Beijing Olympics, Partyka represented Poland in the team events, and won two of the six matches she participated in. She was nicknamed the table tennis “Venus” by Chinese audiences.

Partyka began playing table tennis at 7, when she followed her elder sister to a table-tennis club and decided to give it a try. She fell in love with the sport immediately.

She could not throw the ball up with the right hand when needing to serve, so she learned to hold the ball between her upper right arm and her body and toss it from there. Partyka trained hard to balance herself and build strength.

Shebegantocompeteinsportgamesfordisabledpersonsat11andwonherfirstgoldinthe2004AthensParalympicsat15.In2005,PartykafirstappearedattheWorldChampionship and played against able-bodied athletes. In the team event at the World Championship this February, she defeated Li Jiawei, a Singaporean player then ranked 6th in the world. In the Beijing Paralympics, Partyka beat several Chinese players, and successfully defended her Paralympic title.

For a long time, Partyka has wanted to be treated as a regular athlete. And now she is happy that people are judging her on her merits and forgetting that she is disabled.

Partyka attributes her success to support from her family. Although she was born into a wealthy family, she was taught to be tough. Her parents did not treat her any dif-ferently from other kids. She often went to training together with her father and sister and has been regularly supported by her parents.

Partyka is currently a high school student. She wishes to study psychology in the fu-ture. She will try to qualify for the women’s singles event in the London Olympics. “Maybe you will still see me at the Olympics even eight years from now,” Partyka said. n

DREAM BIG: Poland’s Natalia Partyka is the only table tennis player to have competed in both the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics

XU

JIAJU

N

If athletes have superhuman abilities, in

what ways are they mortal?

Bo Jackson Talks about Injury http://tiny.cc/BoJackson

“Lou Gehrig: Farewell to Baseball”

“The Legacy of Lou”

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

Bo Jackson Talks about Injury

Video: http://tiny.cc/BoJackson

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

Lou Gehrig: Farewell to Baseball, July 4, 1939 Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert; also the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barow; to have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow Miller Huggins; then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology ­­ the best manager in baseball today ­­ Joe McCarthy! Sure, I'm lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift, that's something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something. When you have a wonderful mother­in­law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter, that's something. When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it's a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that's the finest I know. So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break; but I have an awful lot to live for!

Reading Language Arts Text Set Grade 9, Third Six Weeks

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS

ago this week, Lou Gehrig delivered one

of the most famous lines of sports poetry. “Today,” he told the crowd at Yankee Stadium as he bade farewell to baseball on July 4, 1939, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Two years later Gehrig died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, leaving behind his famous speech, an iconic streak, an Oscar-winning movie (Pride of the Yankees) and a disease that, like Gehrig himself, has proved to be an Iron Horse.

Gehrig’s goodbye remains a sad interlude in the story baseball tells about itself, wedged between the 1919 Black Sox scandal and Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in ’47. Unlike those stories, though, Gehrig’s has no moral. A good man faced death with dignity and grace, but ALS won. It always does.

Maybe the best way to think about ALS is to picture your favorite athletes and take away the physical traits that make them special. Then take away what makes them average. Then take away what keeps them alive. As Lucie Bruijn, chief scientist of the ALS Association, says, the disease rips apart “a connection of the muscles, the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.” As many as

more important, chairman of the board of directors of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which helps fight ALS.

Howell says, “We will find treatments for this condition if we maintain focus and have adequate funding,” and for the first time in many years, that’s not just a wish. For most of the 20th century, as scientists produced vaccines for polio and smallpox and developed treatments that put some forms of cancer into remission, ALS remained an enigma. Then came a breakthrough, in 1993: the discovery of a mutation in a gene called SOD1, which can cause ALS. As Harvard researcher Merit Cudkowicz says, scientists finally had “a place to start.”

They have now found 35 such mutations. So there is hope, and there are scientists devoted to the cause—every new discovery brings a new wave of researchers. There just isn’t enough money. In honor of Gehrig, MLB is giving $300,000 to ALS research. (You can donate at www.fight4als.org.)

Before Lou Gehrig’s disease was Lou Gehrig’s Disease, it was a complete mystery. Now scientists believe the code can be cracked. On July 4, MLB will again celebrate Gehrig’s legacy and the fight against ALS. Teams will show a video of current first basemen reciting lines from Gehrig’s speech. The moment could pass, while kids reach for Cracker Jack and adults sip beers, or it could galvanize people to give money and change the way we look at ALS. Someday science will triumph, the death sentence will be lifted, and people who are cured of ALS might consider themselves the luckiest people on the face of the earth. ±

30,000 Americans have ALS right now. There is no cure.

Every once in a while, ALS claims a famous name. In 1975 the disease killed boxer Ezzard Charles; in 1983, actor David Niven. In September 1998, ALS hit another beloved Yankee, pitcher Catfish Hunter. Fans sent Hunter “cures” in the mail, and in March 1999, Hunter said, “They’ll find a cure someday, and I just hope I’m still here when they find it.” He died six months later. Without medicine to save them, some victims have tried humor. Writer Dudley Clendinen called ALS “Lou” after his diagnosis in November 2010, as though it were an old friend instead of a vicious disease that would kill him 18 months later.

Gehrig did not have children, and because he died at 37, his life had no twilight. He did not get the chance to sit on his porch and gently tell stories about himself. But here is one.

In Gehrig’s final weeks his doctor Caldwell B. Esselstyn would visit him daily. Esselstyn’s eight-year-old daughter, Sally, would wait in the car. Gehrig was unable to walk outside and say hello, but he would wave to Sally from his house. Sally became a doctor herself and married another doctor, R. Rodney Howell, who is now the president of the Lou Gehrig Society —and

The Legacy Of Lou B Y M I CH A EL ROSENBERG

124 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / JULY 7, 2014

CA

RLO

S M

. SA

AV

ED

RA

FO

R S

PO

RT

S ILLU

ST

RA

TE

D

POINT AFTER

Before Lou Gehrig’s

disease was Lou Gehrig’s

Disease, it was a

complete mystery.

Now scientists

believe the code can be

cracked.

Do you know someone who suffers from

ALS?Share those

stories on Twitter by

using #SIPointAfter and following

@Rosenberg_Mike