|
|
shelflifers
Member
|
|
|
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 18633
Location: Austin, TX
|
| Back to top
|
|
 Posted: 06/23/03 - 14:40 Post subject:
| akern wrote: | 
Here's what I get.  |
Here Achey...
Rowing turns tide for disabled athlete
RUTH ROVNER , Special to The Times 06/22/2003
As a world-class rower, it’s no surprise that Scott Brown of Collingdale works out diligently. He uses a rowing machine at home and in the gym at his workplace, and he’s out on the Schuylkill River for hours. The fact that he is a double amputee in a wheelchair hasn’t stopped him. He rows in a shell adapted for disabilities, and he competes in regattas with other disabled rowers.
His many trophies are proof that he’s a champion. In fact, last September, he won a gold medal during the World Rowing Championship in Spain. And he’s training for the 2003 World Rowing Championships in Italy.
"It was a totally thrilling moment," he recalls. "There are no words to describe how I felt."
Another thrilling moment came in April when Brown became the first disabled recipient of the Heidere Award given by the Philadelphia Rowing Society.
Brown is the first disabled rower to receive this prestigious award, which is given each year to the rower who’s had the most significant impact on the sport. As a gold medalist who has overcome tremendous obstacles, the 36-year-old rower is obviously deserving.
He never dreamed he’d become a champion rower. Before suffering devastating injuries in an auto accident, he’d been a skinny kid who hated gym.
But he did enjoy driving a car -- until the night in l987 when he was in his Nissan, speeding on a dark, winding road. Misjudging a turn, he hit a tree head on.
The injuries were overwhelming: There was massive internal bleeding, both legs were crushed and severed from his body. His pelvis, too, was crushed, and he also severed an artery in his hip.
"For the first two days, the doctors told my parents that I probably wouldn’t make it," he relates. "But somehow I turned a corner."
At Bryn Mawr Hospital, he learned how to get around in a wheelchair and had strenuous physical therapy.
"The pain was just excruciating," he admits.
After one month in the hospital, his rehab continued as an outpatient. Since he could not support himself, he moved back home with his mother in Bryn Mawr.
"I was totally depressed," he says. "I didn’t know what was going to become of me."
Certainly he didn’t expect to become a college graduate and a world-class athlete. In fact, before the accident, he had an unfulfilling job as a parking lot attendant.
During one of his rehab sessions at Bryn Mawr Hospital, a therapist told him about the Philadelphia Rowing Program for the Disabled (PRPD), the largest adaptive rowing program in the United States.
Taking the therapist’s advice, Brown went to the PRPD boathouse on West River Drive one afternoon. Soon he was seated in a boat with another rower.
"As soon as we got out on the water, the rowing came pretty easily," he relates. "It gave me a sense of independence. And being on the water had a calming effect."
Another benefit was meeting others with disabilities, who were enthusiastic and motivated about rowing. He met blind rowers, and athletes with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis and other disabilities.
Soon he started rowing in a double shell made especially for adaptive rowers. It’s larger and more stable than the ordinary vessels.
Brown progressed so quickly that he was soon rowing solo, and he was good enough to enter his first regatta. It was the Bayada Regatta, a national competition for disabled athletes. Brown won first place.
"I was really pumped up after that," he says.
He was so energized that when one of his rowing friends encouraged him to enroll at Temple University, he did.
At Temple, where he shared a dorm with another disabled student, he took on an ambitious program: a double major in exercise physiology and corporate fitness and a minor in business. And he became involved in athletics.
Within two days of entering Temple, he was recruited for the wheelchair basketball team. Then came wheelchair road racing, skiing, and scuba diving. And, of course, his rowing also continued -- and so did his awards.
By his junior year, he was ready to compete in the prestigious Dad Vail Regatta. For the first time, this all-collegiate national regatta included an adaptive division for disabled rowers. Brown won first place.
The winning streak continued after graduation. He not only took first-place honors in the Bayada Regatta almost every year, but he also entered the Head of the Schuylkill, a 2.3-mile national competition that attracts hundreds of rowers, both able-bodied and disabled, from all over the United States.
As an adaptive rower in a general competition, Brown was at a disadvantage because he had to use a shell less speedy than the regular racing shell.
"I would have been happy beating a few of the adaptive athletes," he says. Instead, he beat all of them, plus two able-bodied rowers.
Brown works for the U.S. Department of Labor as a human resource specialist, at the Curtis Center on Washington Square in Center City.
At 165 pounds, he’s trim and in top shape -- even though his left leg is in a prosthesis and his right leg, an above-the-knee amputation, has no prosthesis.
Despite the disability, he’s able to drive to work in a jeep with hand controls.
At home in Collingdale, he and his wife, Sandy, an occupational therapist for special needs children, live in a ranch home with adaptive modifications.
Married five years ago, the two met when both were Temple students participating in a road race.
Last September, Brown faced the major race of his life, the world championships in Spain. It was the first time that the World Rowing Organization held adaptive races as well as regular ones. Brown was one of seven athletes invited to join the national team of top adaptive rowers.
It was a 1,000-meter race, and the rowers knew it would be tough.
"There was a very rough wind, the water was choppy, and the race was almost cancelled," he said.
Despite the difficulties, the race went on. Scott pulled ahead right away and was way ahead when the race ended. At the end, he wheeled up the ramp to receive his gold medal, while the American flag was hoisted, the national anthem was played, and the crowds cheered.
"It was awesome!" he says. "I was just overcome with emotion."
But he took little time to bask in his glory. Instead, he went right back to training, this time preparing for the 2003 World Rowing Championships to be held in Milan in late August. He’s again going for the gold.
Regardless of awards, he feels immensely grateful that rowing has been the catalyst that changed his life.
"Strangely enough, the accident was probably the best thing to happen to me," he said. "Before that, I was going nowhere. But rowing has given me a purpose in life."
___________
Awesome story!
|
!
to Scott!
