One Can Make a Difference (21 page)

When I was a child, I wore wooden prosthetic legs, which were really uncomfortable. I had to put my stump into a thick wooly sock that went into a wooden socket that caused sores and blisters, but it was what I had, so I lived my life with it. As a kid, all I wanted to do was go outside and play, like almost all kids I knew. No sooner was I home from school than I was out riding my bike or playing ball or swimming. That's why, when I was eight, I was as excited as if it had been Christmas morning, when I got my first “high tech” legs, made for swimming. I was expecting these magical waterproof legs that I could swim in, legs that would resist the rot of the wooden ones. But they were horrible! If I went off the diving board headfirst, I would end up coming out of the water feet first. That's because they were actually so waterproof that they were buoyant. As I wore them and broke them in, they developed hairline cracks around the knees that let water seep in, making them almost too heavy to deal with at all. When I exited the pool, you could almost see the water level in the pool go down, there was so much water in my legs! My father ended up drilling holes in the ankles so that the water could run out.

The legs were a nightmare for another reason, too. They were made of a bright white plastic, like a filled milk jug, and the foot part was a tacky neon peach color. It was humiliating to wear them. I would go to the beach in New Jersey with my parents. Usually, by the time we got there, we would have to sit at least 100 yards back from the sea because of the hundreds of people on the beach in front of us. To get to the sea, it was like running the gauntlet. No one could ignore this blinding glow of my legs as I raced as fast as I could to the water's edge. Maybe that's where I first learned to sprint.

The experience was incredibly uncomfortable. People didn't want to stare at me, but they couldn't help it. People are afraid of what they don't understand, they're often too embarrassed to ask questions, and so they nervously giggle or point. Ultimately, these experiences made me strong, because I realized that everyone has felt that way in their lives, no matter what; everyone has felt as if they were standing out from everyone else in an uncomfortable way. That eventual realization helped me triumph over my awkwardness and find what I believed to be attractive within myself. If you aren't comfortable with yourself, you're hardly giving anyone else a reason to be comfortable with you either. The fact that I figured this out earlier than a lot of people might have been because of those awful legs.There's truth to the saying that, “unless a man finds peace within himself, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.”

Growing up, I never knew another amputee. I didn't identify with being part of any “community” of people who didn't have their own feet or anything like that. I was just me. I'd never even heard of disabled sports. Then, when I was in college, a guy I knew suggested that I compete in the National Disabled Sports Championships in Boston. At first, I was so offended. Having always played against kids who had natural legs, and proud of competing on championship teams, I thought I didn't need the cheap thrill or “esteem-boost” of being able to beat someone in a wheelchair, someone who couldn't use their legs! But obviously, I was truly ignorant about the whole disabled sports scene. At that time, I was more into painting and acting, but I did love sports. I couldn't resist finding out about this whole world I had never been a part of. Then I got to thinking. I was in my summer job at the Pentagon (not fun) and I figured if I could get approval to take the Thursday and Friday off to go to the Games, I could have a long fun weekend in Boston, which I hadn't seen before. I'd never even been in a sprint race at that time, and had no formal training, which left me to my own devices. My big idea was to have no caffeine for a couple of weeks. Then, the morning of the race, I drank a big coffee to get me going, thinking I'd have some extra pep in my step. Of course, that was a ridiculous idea since I already felt like throwing up because I was so very nervous, not knowing what awaited me. I asked an official if he had any last minute advice and he said, “Honey, if at the end of the race you have anything left in you, you didn't run hard enough.” So, when the starter's pistol went off, I threw myself down that track. I ran as if something big and hairy was chasing me, and I won, literally by a nose, my nose pushed over that finish line. I had beaten the national record holder by just six hundredths of a second!

After the race, I met Van Phillips, a prosthetics designer of carbon graphite legs with shock absorbers for cross training (what I affectionately call “Robocop legs”). He gave me his card and told me I needed to train properly—as a runner. I ended up calling him a few months later and asking him to give me some of those high-tech fancy legs. The insurance companies only give you very basic legs, but I wanted legs that would help me become what I wanted to be, the fastest woman on artificial legs in the world. As a kid, I had watched
The Bionic Woman
on TV and whenever they said, “We can rebuild her,” my heart would flutter. I wanted to be sensual, feminine, and superfast, just like her. I was an athlete, and I wanted to be the best. What I didn't know was that I wasn't going to get that Robocop leg, I was going to get something much better for sprinting. The idea for the “cheetah leg” came about because, after all these years of trying to mimic human legs with prosthetics, we started looking at the fastest thing that runs.

Whereas most prosthetic legs can be modeled from a person's other leg, matching the weight, calibration, alignment, height, and so on, I am missing both legs, and it's hard to match against something that's not there. In my case, the “lack” of something resulted in an area of potential, where we could create whatever we wanted to try and fulfill our dreams of being fast. Van developed the Flex-Foot “cheetah leg,” a simple C-shape design that weds technology to nature and, with the materials of woven carbon fiber, actually improves upon it, allowing a human amputee to push beyond what his or her body would have done naturally.

Nothing great is going to happen unless you start making it happen, and that almost invariably involves risking something, whether it's time, money, energy, or pride. Because of that collaboration with Van, I succeeded in becoming one of the fastest women on the planet, and sports prosthetics were revolutionized. Now I'm getting to working with scientists at MIT Media Lab on testing the first powered ankle, which is like the Holy Grail of leg prosthetics! It would be a huge gift to get some ankles that work.

It's a privilege to be considered a pioneer, but I'm no martyr. I didn't choose what I started out with, I just decided that I wanted to be the very best I can be. In my little journal of sayings is my longtime favorite: Gandhi's words, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Stop complaining about what is missing in your life and start dreaming and doing and filling that void you noticed in the first place.

When I went on Oprah's show, she bent down and examined my artificial legs. She then looked up at the audience and said, “I will never complain about having to get on the treadmill at the gym again!” The audience laughed along with her. I didn't really see the point of why she thought that my having prosthetic legs equated to me loving to get on the treadmill. I said to her, “Why? I hate the treadmill as much as you all do and I go to the gym for the same reason you all do. Because my ass would weigh 300 pounds if I didn't!” (I love food!) And that's how it is. I'm going through the same things as everyone else, I get afraid the same as anyone else, and I want to look good like everyone else. If I'm known for my talent, I think that does more to change the idea of what it is to have a “disability” than if I am an object of misdirected sympathy. Feelings are universally human. I feel the sting of being too proud, or of being scared, or the responsibility that comes with succeeding— you have to keep dreaming bigger, and resist that urge to censor yourself and your wildest imagination. I am forging through this life just like everyone else. Perhaps the only difference for me is that I can be any height I want to be and put on the most gorgeous pair of high heels you can imagine, just by putting on a different pair of legs!

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA

Champion of Fair Play

There is no doubt that one of the best things ever to happen to U.S. tennis was
the 1975 defection from Czechoslovakia of Martina Navratilova, the young
woman who would dazzle the sport. Described by Billie Jean King in 2006
as “the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived,”
Martina Navratilova holds the all-time record for the most titles held—for
men or women—having won eighteen Grand Slam singles titles and forty-one
Grand Slam doubles titles, as well as the women's singles title at Wimbledon
nine times.

Martina's athletic prowess alone is reason enough for inclusion in this book,
for she has a determination and passion for her sport that is motivating and
inspiring.Yet, there is something else to admire about her: Martina is forthright.
Born in a communist country, seeking citizenship in her new home, working to
be a credit to her gender and more, she has had to wait patiently for the moment
when she could finally speak openly and honestly about her political beliefs and
about her sexuality. A caring and driven individual, although now retired from
professional tennis, Martina still inspires good sportsmanship and champions
human and animal rights.

I
learned to play tennis when I was about five years old, hitting the ball up against the wall outside my home. I used my grandmother's racquet (she called me her “little golden girl”)

and it was so heavy that I had to grasp it with both hands.

That's how I developed my backhand, slamming the ball that way into the wall! It was about two years before I played on a real court. A coach recognized my talent and took me under his wing, training me for free. If he hadn't, we would never have been able to afford lessons. He told his wife, “She's going to be a champion,” but he never told me. I only found that out much later. I had a huge crush on him. His name was George and he was tall, blond, handsome, sweet, and sexy. His nickname was “Gorgeous George.” I also had crushes on girls, but if I could have been with him, I might have been straight!

Tennis is exhilarating, very exciting. Billie Jean probably said it best when she said something to the effect of, “I've been playing for years and I've never seen the ball come over the net the same way twice.” You have to constantly adjust your playing to get it just right. In some other sports there's more of a set situation, few or no variables. In tennis there's always a need for a new reaction. When the ball's coming at you, you have to react and consider, in a split second, the surface, the opponent, the wind, all sorts of factors. I've never understood how Venus [Williams] could say she is bored after forty-five minutes. It's always different, always exciting.

I believe in fairness. That's what I was taught as a child, to play fair, to be fair in all things, and that's what I try to do. I can get livid if I think something is unfair and so I've had to learn to control my temper. It has even cost me matches. For example, if it were up to me, there would be no linesmen. If there was a doubt, I'd give the benefit of it to my opponent. I would expect my opponent to do the same for me. But some people don't return such courtesy! It used to be, in the old days, that if I got a bad call, I'd get extremely upset at the injustice of it. Or if I missed an easy shot, I'd mope, whine, and moan about it. I might miss one point for the mistake or the bad call, but I'd end up losing three or four games or the whole match because of my mood. Then, someone else in professional sports said to me,“You're only hurting yourself really.The newspapers won't say ‘Oh, Martina lost the match because of an unfair call that upset her.'” I realized she was right. No one but me knew what was throwing my game; it was stupid. So, after that, I effectively controlled my anger.

The more I think about it and talk about it, the more that I see that my reasons for leaving my country combined two important elements of who I am. Staying would have meant not having the freedom to play tennis as I wanted to, and it was such a taboo to be gay. I was living under a repressive regime with total control. If you wanted to leave the country, you had to get a visa from a foreign embassy, but before you crossed that bridge, you had to have permission from the national authorities to apply for one. No permit from them, no visa. The federal government could nominate me to go to a tournament or deny me permission. I had played doubles with Chris Evert, that sort of thing, and the authorities were concerned that I was becoming “too Americanized,” too influenced by a free society. They were right: I was having a hard time living in my own country and I knew I had to get out one way or another. The authorities had OKed me to go to the European tournament, but it seemed clear that I wasn't going to be allowed to play in the U.S. Open again. Then, suddenly, my break came and the officials at the tennis federation let me go to New York only for a week before the tournament. I seized my visa and left. As soon as I lost to Chris in the semifinals, I defected.

I couldn't “come out of the closet” as early as I wanted to. First, I was applying for U.S. citizenship and being gay would have disqualified me. And being famous brings its own problems. Sometimes someone a celebrity has a relationship with doesn't want to be in the spotlight, perhaps because they are not ready to “come out” themselves or simply because, gay or straight, they want to be private people, not public property. That's how it was with me with my partner. I remember, too, when Chris and I were up for the presidency of the World Tennis Association, back in 1979 or 1980, and we had to give a special spiel to the committee. I said, “By the way, I'm in a relationship with a woman.” They wanted to know if I was going to tell the press. I said that if asked, I would answer truthfully. Needless to say, I didn't get the presidency! That wasn't long after the Billie Jean “scandal,” so there was always the threat that the sponsors would pull out of the women's tour and that would be the end of it.