The power of perserverance and belief in your ability to reach you goals
Quote:
My mother taught me very early to believe I could acience any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.
Wilma Rudolph
Story for this week
On September 7, 1960, Wilma Rudolph made Olympic history by becoming the first woman, not to mention the first African-American woman, to win three gold medals. Her accomplishments in track and field—taking first place in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dash and in the 4×100 relay—opened the door for women and girls in previously all-male track and field events. Graceful, fast and slender, the Italian press called her La Gazzella—the gazelle.
Born in segregated Clarksville, Tennessee, on June 23, 1940, the twentieth of twenty-two children, she weighed just four-and-a-half pounds. Her parents were hardworking but quite poor.
Wilma’s mother nursed her sickly child through the measles, chicken pox, double pneumonia and scarlet fever. When Wilma’s left foot and leg drew up and turned in, the diagnosis of polio seemed final. Doctors gave the little girl no hope of ever walking without braces or crutches, if at all.
But her mother didn’t accept the doctors’ opinions.
Twice a week for two years she drove Wilma the fifty miles to Nashville for treatment at Meharry Hospital, part of Fisk University, a black college. The doctors showed Mrs. Rudolph how to exercise Wilma’s muscles, and she in turn taught the therapies to Wilma’s brothers and sisters.
Everyone helped, and by age eight Wilma was not only walking without crutches and braces, but playing basketball in the backyard.
Wilma joined her junior-high basketball team, but the coach didn’t put her in a single game. By her sophomore year in high school Wilma started as guard. Her performance caught the attention of Ed Temple, coach of the Tennessee State University Tigerbells, who offered her a full scholarship when she graduated.
Besides guiding the basketball team to a championship Wilma also excelled at track and field, earning a spot in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where the sixteen-year-old brought home a bronze medal in the 4×4 relay.
But it was her outstanding accomplishments in Rome that brought Rudolph fame and influence. Despite all the obstacles she had to overcome she won 3 gold medals - an awesome achievement
Excerpted from ThroughYourBody.com