This Changed My Life
I grew up, and thrived, in the sighted world. At age six I was required, although it felt being banished, to attend Ontario School for the Blind, 500 miles from home. At age eight, I won my first gold medal in tournament against sighted opposition. At that moment, my eight-year-old mind became convinced that if I kept winning against sighted opposition, I could prove I deserved to go home and live with my family and friends in the sighted world. After that, nothing could stop me, because it wasn’t about the medals, it was all about going home. Here are some of the pictures from those early days of my pursuit.
I didn’t limit myself to wrestling. The desire to go home drove me to succeed in every sport that would help me justify case to return to the sighted world and live with my family and friends. Here are a few pictures of the other sports I competed in successfully in school.
My parents and my coaches taught me that achieving any worthwhile goal would take hard work, so I determined I’d work harder than anybody else.
I did finally succeed and I started high school in my home town of Desbarats, Ontario