What Slippery Rock Kicker Does Is Quite a Feat

Ronnie West was born in London 25 years ago, a Thalidomide baby with no arms. But his handicap never stopped him. By age 6, he was swimming. Today he’s a kicker on the Slippery Rock University football team.

“I’m not doing it as a joke. I may not have any arms, but I love sports and I consider myself an all-around athlete,” said West, who is believed by the NCAA to be the first U.S. college football player with no arms.

“I love football. It’s taken me a year and a half to learn the rules, but I love the game.”

West was working for an engineering firm and competing in various athletic events for the disabled, when a visiting Slippery Rock professor heard him address a Rotary Club meeting in London.

Impressed by West’s confidence and stage presence--”I certainly have a gift for gab,” West said--the professor invited him to study in the U.S. The Rotary Club and others agreed to pick up his first year’s expenses.

West accepted the offer, saying, “I’m a gambler. . . . I like doing the unexpected. I didn’t want to wake up one morning at age 30, married with three kids, knowing I missed the chance to study in the U.S.”

West began swimming when he was 6 and had competed against other handicapped athletes for a decade.

This season, he decided to try football as a kick.

“Coach (Bob) DiSpirito asked me to give his players a motivational talk. I told him, ‘While I’m here, I’m interested in kicking,’ ” West said. “I went back to talk to him the next day and he said, ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ ”

The idea didn’t thrill either Di- Spirito or Slippery Rock Athletic Director Bill Lennox. Because a kicker sometimes has to tackle on kickoffs and blocked field-goal attempts, they knew West could try only extra points. And there was the worry opponents would accuse the Rockets of humiliating them by using a kicker with no arms.

Because a doctor wouldn’t certify him for competition, West was allowed to play only after signing a liability waiver clearing the university and the NCAA of any legal obligation should he be injured.

“There were concerns about him playing football, but Ronnie’s a very popular person on campus,” said John Carpenter, Slippery Rock’s sports information director. “The people here are very supportive of him.”

West kicked in a game for the first and only time Oct. 10, when Slippery Rock beat fellow NCAA Division II and Pennsylvania Conference member Lock Haven, 34-0. He attempted the Rockets’ final two extra points, missing the first after a bad snap before sailing the second cleanly through the uprights. Teammates pounded him on the back and voted him a game ball.

“It was a lot of fun but I expected to do it. I wouldn’t have gone out for kicker if I didn’t think I could do it,” West said. “I know people are aware that a player with no arms is out there but kickers are a strange lot anyway. People are used to seeing odd-looking kickers.”

In life as in football, West uses his feet and toes to accomplish the tasks most people perform with their arms and hands. His Camaro Z-28 has a special floor-mounted steering wheel, although his Slippery Rock apartment required no modifications to compensate for what West calls “being physically different.”

He writes, buttons his shirts, turns doorknobs and eats with his feet. “Most mothers tell their children to keep their elbows off the table. Mine told me to keep my ankles off the table,” he said. “Some people are left-handed. I’m left-footed.”

West holds five world swimming records for the disabled, won two silver swimming medals in the 1984 International Games for the Disabled and plans to swim in the 1988 disabled games in Seoul, South Korea, before retiring from competition.

Extremely self-confident and a natural talker, West returns to England four times a year to co-host the BBC show “This Morning in Britain” and update British viewers of his doings in America. He first appeared after winning a courage in sports award from a Pittsburgh group and so impressed the network that he was given a three-year contract.

“I’ve taken advantage of the opportunities I’ve been given because I have no arms,” West said. “Sport has opened up everything for me. Here, I’m just a student, but in England people know me wherever I go. I’m a TV person and they know who I am.”

He hopes to become a TV talk show host, either here or in Britain.

“I give a lot of speeches to kids and I tell them, ‘I can do everything you can do, I just do it differently. Not everybody is the same as you, but as long as they can do the things you do and get through life, that’s all that matters.’ ”