Newspaper Page Text
It
Hometown 1
, Hero
w fj ’ HBBp wl Mji^ i
.:'s&s■ - rTfeV/jWB
&£*•»
mm.
by KAREN KARVONEN l|B,f, JSfifflEP
Photos by Joshua Lau ton
jssSNl K.
Skiers _ * r =s^?«?
i.. *
Nothing thrills ski instructor
Hal O’Leary more than seeing a dozen empty
wheelchairs parked at the base of the ski slopes in
Winter Park, Colo. ‘I see people who are double
amputees or paraplegics get out of their car, pull
out their wheelchair and mono-ski (a molded seat
mounted on a single ski with hand-held outrigger
ski tips) and proceed to the lift all by themselves,”
O'Leary says.
Minutes later, they are whizzing down the
runs using adaptive ski equipment that O’Learv
helped develop. Since founding the
National Sports Center for the Dis
abled (NSCD) in 1970, O'Leary
has made it possible for thousands
of kids and adults with close to
100 different disabilities—includ
ing birth defects, multiple sclero
sis, autism, developmental disabili
ties and blindness—to enjoy the
snow-covered slopes. Today, the
NSCD gives more than 7,000
ski lessons a year, and other
programs worldwide reter
people to the center.
O'Leary, 68, vividly Mi Jf
recalls teaching his very
first adaptive ski les-
RB ■ . '*j||Bb&MB»HB^HHM^HE^2BEBML
* ■ JH
taySg .
son—to 23 young amputees from Childrens Hos
pital in Denver—in 1970. A ski instructor in Win
ter Park, he had volunteered to help the hospital’s
amputee program though, at the time, no specific
method existed for teaching amputees to ski.
"It was a cold, miserable January day, and the
kids were slipping and sliding," recalls O’Leary,
who lives in nearby Fraser, Colo. (pop. 910). "After
lunch I put them on the chair lift, and it was a
melee at the top. But as we started working on the
practice hill, they began moving on their own and
squealing with excitement."
O’Leary was hooked,
and his new dream was
to inspire and enable
"" disabled individuals to
enjoy the sport he loves.
He began to devise his own
methods and equipment,
developing the three-track
system for amputees wfoo use
one ski and two outriggers,
. forearm crutches with ski
tips mounted to the bases.
When teaching a
child with spina bifida
h|A who had great difficul
ry standing. O'Learv
Ski instructor
k Hal O'Leary
l r,
. it
Wl k
Bril
The smile says, "What a ride!”
devised a contrap
tion called the ski
bra. "Larry’s skis
kept parting and
going out, and he
would fall forward,”
O’Leary says. "So 1
put a hole in the
tips of the skis and
threaded a bungee
cord through them
to stabilize them. He was able to ski and turn
without falling, and now I see it used wherever
I go.”
A former coach of the U.S. Disabled Olympic
Ski Team, O’Leary pioneered competitive racing
for the disabled. One of his star pupils, David
Jamison of Tabernash, Colo. (pop. 165), the 1982
U.S. world champion in the slalom category, went
on to race competitively for 22 years.
A three-tracker with polio in his left leg,
Jamison started skiing with O’Leary in 1971.
"Without him. 1 wouldn’t have gotten to the level
of skiing 1 did, and the racing program wouldn’t
have become world class," Jamison says.
Despite O’Leary’s success with his students,
his first 10 years were a struggle. "People who felt
that skiing was for the able-bodied’ criticized me,”
Page 12
www.americanprofile.com
Hal O'Leary, left,
accompanies I l-year-ofd
Michael Henshall, who has
cerebral palsy, on the ski
slope in Winter Park, Colo.
jst»
w
m