Blind Skier Sets Goals on Disabled Olympics

Blindness has not stopped 53-year-old Ed Kanan from competing in the sports he loves--snow and water skiing--and he has the gold medals to prove it.

He lost his vision, one eye at a time, seven years ago from detached retinas related to a diabetic condition. Two operations were unable to save his sight.

A developer and president of Santa Monica-based Kanan Brothers Builders, he called the period after his surgery “the low point in my life.” But rather than submit to depression, he took up the challenge of competitive skiing. (There are 200-250 competitive blind skiers in the United States, according to the American Council of the Blind in Washington, D.C.)

Forced Himself to Recover

Six months after going blind, he was schussing down a slope in Vail, Colo.

“I forced myself to recover,” he said. “I figured if I could ski down a mountain, I could do everything I put my mind to.”

Kanan recently spoke with a visitor in his Wilshire Boulevard office. A wide grin often crossed his deeply tanned face as he discussed his life and his ambition to compete in the 1988 Handicapped Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, sponsored by the International Sports Organization for the Disabled.

As an athlete, he has varied successes to draw on. He played basketball and volleyball at Santa Monica High School and Santa Monica College and was a member of the national championship volleyball team at UCLA in 1954.

In 1974, he bought a home near Lake Arrowhead as a retreat for himself and his wife, Sharon, 50, and sons Eddie, 25, and Kevin, 23.

“It was a place where we would go as a family and it would keep the boys and me together as a unit,” he said. He called his early skiing attempts there “klutzy.”

“I never learned how to ski until I went blind. It took so long to break the bad habits,” he said. “In water skiing, it took a long time to get up on two skis and then getting up on one ski. . . .”

Guided by his son Eddie, Ed Kanan said he is a better snow skier now because where he once feared large, bumpy moguls on some steep runs, now, he handily skis over them. “With the lack of sight, when you can’t see something to be afraid of, you aren’t afraid,” he said.

He admitted that he has had spills, including one where he “bowled over” an onlooking skier. “I’ve had harrowing experiences where I’ve gotten hurt a little, but never anything serious,” he said.

In 1983, he won a gold medal in the giant slalom at the U.S. Assn. of Blind Athletes Alpine Competition, held at Alta, Utah. It was a double victory because it marked the first time he had competed while guided by Eddie. The framed gold medal hangs in the reception area of his business.

In January, 1986, he won two silver medals in the giant slalom and slalom of the Western Region finals of the USABA Alpine Competition, held in Kirkwood, Calif. In March, he garnered two gold medals in the giant slalom in the USABA’s national competition, held in Boreal Ridge, Calif., and became its 1986 Blind Alpine Ski Champion.

In February, 1986, at Alpine Meadows (near Squaw Valley), he raced in the Western Region finals of the National Handicapped Sports and Recreation Assn., an organization whose members include Ted Kennedy Jr., who lost a leg to bone cancer. Kanan won a gold medal in the slalom and a silver medal in the giant slalom.

In mid-January, Ed and Eddie flew to Vail for a week to prepare for 1987 competitions. This week Ed is competing at Sandia Peak near Albuquerque, N.M., in the USABA’s Winter National Championships and the pre-qualifying event for the 1988 Handicapped Olympics. So far, he has captured one gold medal. He also will enter the Western and Rocky Mountain regionals of the NHSRA’s ’87 events and hopes to compete in the finals.

Skiiing the Downhill

In future races, he wants to enter downhill competition where speeds reach up to 60 m.p.h.

“The one thing I enjoy about skiing is that you get up on a mountain and you get a natural high. I still get that feeling even though I can’t see the trees zipping by,” he said. “It’s a feeling of accomplishment.”

But his awards haven’t been limited to snow skiing.

In August, he and Sharon flew to Norway, where he captured the title of 1986 World Champion Blind Water Skier in the International Disabled Water Ski Championship, sponsored by the Norwegian Water Ski Federation. He won a gold medal in the wake-crossing event and plans to compete again next year.

Several years ago, Kanan founded a nonprofit organization, Santa Monica Blind Skiers Inc., which last fall co-sponsored the National Blind Water Ski Competition in Winter Haven, Fla. The second annual event was conducted in October in Orlando and attracted about two dozen competitors.

On Ed’s snow-skiing ventures, he usually is accompanied by Kevin, a student at Santa Monica College, and Eddie, who, as controller of Kanan Brothers, can more easily schedule time off.

Eddie learned to ski when he was 12, but in 1983, took race training at Kirkwood Instruction for Blind Skiers to hone his skills as a guide.

“In racing, you’re not allowed to use walkie-talkies,” he said. “It was difficult to do.” The duo practiced at Heavenly Valley on the south shore of Lake Tahoe and Snow Summit at Big Bear.

When Ed snow skis, Eddie skis just ahead of him and in a husky voice calls “Go, go, go” as they traverse the slopes, or exaggerated “Riiight turn,” “Leeeft turn” as they enter a gate.

Ideally, Eddie said, he should ski just four feet ahead of Ed, with their skis’ tips touching. “He’s bumped me a few times,” Eddie said, laughing, “but I’ve been able to ski away from him.”

Likes to Feel Independent

Accidents occasionally occur, Eddie said. “When we’re racing, it’s difficult because a lot of people stop in the middle of a run out of curiosity and I have to anticipate which way they’re going to go.”

Sharon is the family worrier, and her concern sometimes annoys her husband, who likes to feel independent, even if it means feeling pain. “It’s that protectiveness in me,” she said. “He says, ‘Let me walk into something. I’ll find my way.’ ”

Sharon met Ed when she was 17. At 19, she was married to him. That was more than 30 years ago.

The family lives in a ranch-style Pacific Palisades home that was Ed’s second home-building project 27 years ago. His daily regimen includes cycling 30 miles on a stationary bicycle that stands by the flagstone fireplace in the den. He also does 50 sit-ups and a few dozen push-ups.

Kanan gives himself two shots of insulin daily, aided by someone only to measure dosages. He is among 1 million diabetics in California, part of 12 million nationwide, according to American Diabetes Assn. figures.

Usually, a family member drives him to work, but sometimes he gets his cane, walks a few blocks to Sunset Boulevard and catches a bus. Although he continues to head the company he has worked for since 1961, after his surgery he cut his pace from working 60 hours a week to 25 or 30.

Going blind, he said, “has given me a different perspective on taking more time to appreciate some of the things I didn’t appreciate when I could see.”

Visualization is critical to Kanan’s work. Since he was 45 when he lost his sight, he had much to draw upon. By then he had built numerous apartment and condominium complexes, shopping centers and chain stores.

“From experience, I can put together a project that would fit the property, and then I work with the architect,” he explained. “I tell him what I would like and if I feel good about it after somebody goes over the details. Generally, I have him redesign some of the layouts.”

Coping With Blindness

Sharon believes the family’s coping with Ed’s blindness “brought out strength that we didn’t know we had.” She concedes that it occasionally was a source of frustration, even for Ed, who “never had to rely on anyone.”

But she saw his handicap has a positive result, too. “Most men are within themselves, and he was that type of person,” she said. “Once he was in the hospital, he really opened up. Now he shares everything with his family.”

To ease the hard times, “we joke a lot. It kind of helps,” she said. “We say, ‘Well, he’ll never see me grow old.’ ” She managed a smile.

A painful memory remains from when their younger son, Kevin, graduated from high school and she described him for Ed. “That gets to be emotional,” she said tearfully, “with (questions such as) ‘How tall is he?’ ”

Kanan often addresses church congregations and recently spoke to a blind group at the Braille Institute of America Inc. in Palm Springs.

Although he doesn’t consider himself courageous, he hopes he inspires other handicapped people to handle challenges a day at a time. “If I can help other people, that’s what I want to do,” he said.

Meanwhile, he continues to develop apartment buildings in Palm Springs and other Southern California locations.

Kanan calls his blindness more an “inconvenience” than a handicap. Indeed, he is fond of saying that the only task he hasn’t been able to handle “yet” is drive a car.