U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES 1991 : It’s Ability That Counts : Disabled Events an Important Part of the Festival

In a second-round tennis match at the U.S. Olympic Festival, Tony Lara chased down a lob, returned the ball with a resounding whop and rushed the net, only to be beaten by a cross-court backhand from Axel Lopez. With ball boys not included in the Festival budget, Lara retrieved the ball himself, but instead of putting it into his pocket, he jammed it between the spokes of his wheelchair.

When the next rally started, the wheelchair once again faded into the background, obscured by fast-and-furious action performed by athletes who just happen to be disabled.

Aside from giving young able-bodied athletes a chance to compete at a high level, the Festival is providing exposure for top-flight disabled athletes: tennis and weightlifting for wheelchair athletes, volleyball for the deaf, track and field for the blind and weightlifting for athletes with cerebral palsy. In each of the events, “The focus is on their ability, not disability,” said Paul Tetreault, the Festival’s commissioner of disabled sports.

Pure athletic ability was on display, but so were all the attributes that athletes are required to possess--hustle, determination, competitive spirit and courage. This is courage: A blind runner bursts out of the blocks at UCLA’s Drake Stadium and rips down the track, charging head-first through pervasive darkness, knowing that a slight change of course could result in disaster.

“I don’t know how he does it,” T.J. Lester said about Winford Haynes, a 36-year-old blind sprinter. “But he’s absolutely fearless.”

Haynes, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, has been totally blind since 1981 but hasn’t let his disability slow him down. Well, maybe a little. When he was partially sighted, he ran 11.2 seconds in the 100 meters; now he does it in 11.5, which is a national record.

“The first time I went all out on a track, I was scared,” said Haynes, a physical education instructor at a rehabilitation center for blind adults in Alamogordo, N.M. “But you have to put all your fears behind you.”

In the 100, blind runners go off one at a time, following the sounds of callers who are positioned halfway down the track and at the finish line. Runners usually run in the middle lane, so callers can make course corrections by yelling out the lane into which the runner is drifting. The method requires the runners to make split-second adjustments, which slow them down.

Haynes doesn’t like callers. He prefers the method used in the 200 and 400 meters: Guides run along with the blind runner, either tethered by a string or holding an elbow from behind. “I’m trying to get them to use guides for the 100,” Haynes said, “so we can run four across to have a race instead of a time trial.”

Haynes’ guide is Lester, a 37-year-old high school track and football coach in Houston. Lester can keep up with Haynes, barely: He runs the 100 meters in 10.9 seconds and the 200 in 22.3. Their relationship began at the 1986 Olympic Festival in Houston and deepened at the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul. Running in sync, barely touching, Lester looks like Haynes’ shadow.

“He’s so smooth and relaxed, it’s easy to run with him,” Lester said.

Guide runners are hard to find--Haynes doesn’t have one in his hometown--and Festival officials were breaking in new volunteers. One of them was Whaylin Bratton, a 20-year-old sprinter from Mt. San Antonio College. A few days before the competition, Bratton practiced with blind runners, then he was blindfolded to give him empathy.

After jogging a few paces, he stopped, removed the blindfold and said, “Now that’s scary.”

Sports are being used more and more to help the disabled overcome their fears, reshape their self-image and lessen the gap between them and the able-bodied. Although sports have played a large role in rehabilitation for most of this century, it has been only in the past few years that an emphasis has been placed on competition.

“I’ve seen kids with no self-esteem start playing wheelchair tennis and suddenly have a purpose to live,” said Jan Doud, director of junior development for the National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis. “Adolescence is a tough time anyway. People are cruel and life is complicated for kids in chairs. If they have nothing like tennis to lock into, they could turn to negative things. It’s very therapeutic.”

Tennis enabled Tony Lara to fit in at Don Lugo High in Chino. “You can’t hang around with the jocks unless you have a letter jacket,” said Lara, 16. Lara got his letter jacket by playing on his school’s varsity tennis team. It was no token award: Lara was on a doubles team that was ranked second in the Baseline League. The only concession made to him: He was allowed to hit the ball on the second bounce, a standard rule in wheelchair tennis.

Afflicted with spina bifida, Lara has been in a wheelchair all his life but nevertheless has always gone full speed ahead, trying hang-gliding, skiing and water-skiing, tenaciously attacking each sport. Six years ago, he was working out in his chair on a hill and fell while coming down. Up he went again, suffering the same fate, only this time breaking his knee. A few weeks later, he won a national junior tennis tournament with his leg in a cast.

“Tennis has been tremendously liberating for me,” said Lara, who began playing at 9. “Win or lose, I have something I can feel good about.”

Lara, wearing a red-white-and-blue bandanna and an earring, was beaten by Lopez in the second round of the Festival at UCLA, and Lopez, 18, lost to the eventual winner, 17-year-old national junior champion Ryan Martin of Washington. While Lara was disabled long before he became an athlete, Martin was an athlete long before he lost the use of his legs. Five years ago, the boyfriend of his family’s housekeeper went berserk and shot Martin in the back.

“I was always a very good athlete,” said Martin, who began playing tennis in a wheelchair two weeks after getting out of rehab. “But when I was hurt, my self-confidence was shattered. I got it back once I got into tennis.”

Like Lara, Martin plays against able-bodied players. “I’ll play anyone and not be intimidated,” he said.

Twisting to change direction in special lightweight sports chairs, disabled players have amazing range, stamina and control. A backhand is their most difficult shot, but their repertoire includes slices, lobs and drop shots. Lara, who weighs only 116 pounds, considers himself a thinking player.

“I play percentage tennis,” he said. “Keep the first serve in, keep the ball in play. And I love to rush the net.”

Top wheelchair players, regarded as “role models” by Tetreault, are beginning to lobby for their own division in such major able-bodied tournaments as Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

“We’re athletes,” Lara said, “and we want the respect.”