COACHING
Fall 1971:
Rosemere, Quebec :
“Ready go! “ I knew that this would be the last time that I would say this phrase to a group of young dedicated swimmers. I had some remorse at the prospect of moving on, but I had recently achieved a long-term goal of attending medical school and the excitement of this new challenge overshadowed my other emotions.
I had started coaching in the summer of 1968, when I was seventeen, at the Rosemere Curling Club, a summer club where I first competed. I was employed as lifeguard and coach for the next three years, first as an assistant and later as the head coach. Over the next few summers the team did well and there was enthusiasm for the swimmers to train in the winter. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to start a winter club and to see the effects of training year round. With my friend Chris Blais, the club flourished and we were able to watch some very fine athletes improve and mature. Some went on to be provincial finalists and to swim at University. We were never able to qualify any swimmers for the National Championships.
In that spring of 1971 I had the good fortune to be accepted into medical school. My career goal was being realized and I was leaving a job for which I had a passion but no long-term career aspirations.
Over the next four years my life was a blur. I was consumed with hard work, long hours, difficult exams, moving away from home and making the transition to becoming a doctor. What followed was an early career in general practice followed by specialty training and finally the job of my dreams in Vancouver, British Columbia.
On the way I became married and in July of 1984, Deborah and I had our first son Donovan.
’Why are his eyes rolling? ’Deborah asked with concern. It was Donovan’s first few hours of life and unquestionably his eyes were abnormal. I denied the obvious, rationalizing that he was only a few hours old. He was a fretful baby in the first month of life sleeping very little, suffering from colic and being very active.
Six weeks later while in my office Deborah phoned me at the office with desperation in her voice and in tears. ’ His eyes don't follow! ’She said. On arriving home it was obvious that his eyes were not following colorful stimuli but rather moving randomly. He was blind.
Urgent appointments were made with the pediatric ophthalmologist and eventually a second opinion was obtained in Toronto with the same news. Donovan had been born with Lebers Amaurosis; he had no useful vision.
The realization of his deficit was overwhelming. Deborah and I both went through grief and perhaps still today we both have moments when we mourn his absence of sight.
Deborah threw herself into studying developmental tables to ensure he was reaching important milestones in his growth. We both read avidly to ensure that all was being done to encourage normal physical and mental development. We agreed that Donovan would not be denied experiences because of his handicap and we would work to enrich his life's experiences, especially in the formative years.
Having a blind child is a nonnegotiable lesson in parenting. The needs of the child are magnified and one is constantly balancing the needs that are obvious without being overprotective. One is much more cerebral and less reflexive as a parent. Decisions are made only after thought about not only the immediate impact but as well the long term ramifications. It turns parenting from a natural extension of oneself and requires one to become a teacher.
Much of Donovan’s early years were spent ensuring he was developing physically and mentally according to norms. If he could not perform a task spontaneously he was taught, often using our hands over his. Donovan is blessed with a fine intellect and an inquisitive mind. Like many blind people his memory is flawless. He can remember details and dates with ease. He is our family historian, his pronouncements of past events are never wrong. He is a walking resource of birthdays,phone numbers and names.
He also developed a keen wit and sense of fun. April Fools was perhaps his favorite day. Tricks he played included salt on my toothbrush, silly string all over my car and one fateful day stowing away in my car.
I like to be at work early and leave the house before the family is awake. When Donovan was five years old, with the help of his mother he hid in my car. He was supposed to bolt up and say ‘Good morning, Dad’. Donovan had another motive. He wanted to go to work with me and so stayed silent until the engine was stopped. Before he could sit up, I was gone. I had known that he was there.
I proceeded to work and it was a different day. Usually my phone rings from 0700-0730, as patients phone me for advice. On this particular day a new phone system had been installed by the hospital. My office phone was not operational.
Meanwhile Donovan had exited the car, in his pajamas and with his blanket. He stomped up and down, initially being intrigued by the echoes in the parkade. Quickly he understood he was alone in an unfamiliar environment. He started to cry and fortunately a passerby took him in tow, taking him to the St Paul’s emergency room. The nurses there quickly realized who he was and called my office in vain.
They next phoned home and were not amused when Deborah insisted that Donovan was with me. She thought that I was playing a trick back on her. She was informed in firm tones that this was no trick and instructed to pick up her son. When she appeared at my office door, hair soaked from an abbreviated shower, with Donovan in her arms, I asked her why she was with Donovan. Imagine my shock when she told me that he had been with me in the car on the way to work.
We concentrated not only on his milestones of development but also enrolled him in many programs, such as early gymnastics, carpentry, pottery and music therapy. He loved them all.
He also had developed a facility with mechanical devices. He loved his tape recorder and by age 3 had already worn out the buttons on a number of machines. He also loved radio. One morning, just after his fifth birthday, he asked over breakfast how he could get on the radio. I responded there were two ways, go down to the station and be in a broadcast booth or to phone in. Imagine my surprise when he phoned my office later that day and replayed a tape of himself and local DJ, Don Percy. He had talked his way onto the morning show and had the technical foresight to record his first moments on air.
At age three months he was enrolled in a learn to swim program. He took to the water with ease, but I must admit to having had some difficulty with the nursery rhymes that we were required to sing. What followed over the next few years was an obvious love for the water and ease in learning how to swim. By age four he had conquered the front crawl and was able to swim on his back. Often when we were swimming together I would tell on that I used to race and coach .He listened to my stories intently. At age 8 he asked about joining a swim team and fortunately we were members of a local athletics club, the Arbutus Club, which had an active swim program.
Swimming with the swim team proved to be labor-intensive and for the first time in approximately 30 years I returned to the water and was doing laps again. This time however the goal was not to set a personal best time but to get to the wall ahead of Donovan and tap him before he cracked his head. As the workouts became longer I improved my fitness and Donovan certainly became faster. I only lasted a year in the water during his practices, as he was much too fast for me to keep up. We needed to find another method to train. Fortunately we learned about a method to tap using a Styrofoam taper that had been developed in Winnipeg and adopted by blind swimmers worldwide.
Although I was now removed from the pool I was not on the sidelines passively but rather walking along the deck, being sure not to get distracted and to make the tap at the end of each lap.
It became obvious that the more Donovan swam, the keener he was to improve. He never lacked a work ethic or the desire to succeed. At one of the summer camps where I was the camp doctor for children with diabetes, our family met a most wonderful and caring person, Sally Gilbert. As fate would have it she had lived next door to us when Donovan was just two years old as she was going to university and training under Tom Johnson, Head swim coach at the University of British Columbia. She had represented Canada at the at the Commonwealth Games and had been a medallist. She took to Donovan and she offered to help coach him. What followed was a truly loving relationship between the two of them and over the next two years he improved markedly. She finished her training as a dietitian and joined our team at the diabetes camp for number of summers.
At our last summer at the camp when Donovan was 10 years old she offered to swim approximately 2 miles over the open sea to a neighboring island with him. What a sight to witness, she with her wetsuit and Donovan plastered with K Y jelly. It was a feat that I never would have thought of asking Donovan to attempt and I must admit to some amazement that he completed the task with relative ease. My, he was proud.
Over the next two years Donovan trained with Sally and with other volunteers. Sally became engaged to David Marcovitz, and he too joined in the program. David had competed for Canada as a rower and waterpollo player, he was aware of the sacrifices needed to compete at a high level. I would practice with Donovan occasionally but I was very comfortable to leave his workouts with someone who competed at an international level and obviously had a tremendous affinity for him.
He started swimming in the Vancouver lower mainland regional meets and did well, usually finishing in the middle of the pack against his sighted peers. I felt this was a tremendous accomplishment given the limitations of his disability. The Arbutus Club was where he trained almost exclusively and he was welcomed as part of the swim team. He usually trained on his own as he had difficulty with the lanes. Collisions with other swimmers on occasion had led to injury to him and others. Nevertheless he attended meets with the team and by age 11 was swimming fast enough to meet the standards to attend the national championships for swimmers with a disability (SWAD).
His first meet in a 50-meter pool was at Kamloops and he won six events and for the first time we saw how he rose to the challenges of competitions. He thoroughly enjoyed winning as well as traveling to compete. It was at this meet that I met my first representative from Swim Canada, James Hood, and the person who was in charge of the swimmers with a disability national program. It was at this meet where Donovan had done so well that I first began to think that perhaps he was good enough to represent his country as a competitor.
At this point his training was organized informally with Sally and David; swimming about 1500 to 2,000 meters a session, two to three times a week. He became progressively faster and more competent. He attended national meets yearly, which included Regina, Sherbrooke, and Victoria. At each competition he improved upon his previous times from the year previous and matured as a competitor.
At the start of the 1998-99 season Sally, David, Donovan and myself set a goal that perhaps he could make an international team to attend the U.S. national championships in Minnesota. We knew at the outset that the times to make the team represented a significant improvement. To his credit Donovan trained hard and was well prepared for the National Championships at Victoria in May of 1999. Unfortunately at the commonwealth Pool in Victoria the most modern lane ropes were in place. These ropes are magnificent for dampening waves however when a swimmer inadvertently strikes the rope it is very painful and can cause severe bruising or even a laceration. Donovan became acutely nervous of these ropes. Although he swam the best times of his life he fell short of the standard that had been set for him by Swim Canada He was not considered for the team and he was profoundly disappointed.
What was more disturbing was how fast he, as a blind swimmer, was being asked to swim in order to represents his country. I already had compared times that were being swum around the world and it was clear to me that he would be able to make finals at the U.S. meet. I questioned the officials from Swim Canada in this regard. I received a number of mixed messages back but perhaps the most honest one came from Bart , one of his original coaches who said that, looking at this skinny 105 lb., 15 year-old boy he certainly did not look like an elite athlete. This created tremendous confusion with me. What did they mean he did not look like an elite athlete. Did it really matter what he looked like? Was it not more relevant to compare how fast he was swimming to other similarly blind athletes around the world? I did not share my frustration with Donovan at some of these responses.
Far more interesting to me was the grave disappointment he demonstrated on not making the team .The intense emotion and anger that Donovan demonstrated was perhaps a turning point in his career. Sally was firm in her response to him and she stated that in order for him to swim internationally he was going to have to commit to training more than three or four times per week.
Shortly after the Victoria meet it became clear that and David and Sally were no longer able to coach him. They both had careers and time constraints and were not able to commit the time necessary for him to improve further. Donovan had mentioned a number of years earlier that he was desirous of attending the Paralympic Games to be held in Sydney 2000. After hearing that Sally and David were no longer going to be able to coach him he approached me as to how we was going to fulfill his dream.
I too thought about how he could best make his way to Sydney 2000. I saw no other option but to become involved in his day to day training. As a busy endocrinologist my hours were long, from 6:30 AM until 5:30PM. For years I had been in the office between 7:00 and 7:30 each morning to answer patient calls. Thus those who needed changes in their medications could contact me with ease and avoid the need for an office appointment. If Donovan was to swim six to seven times per week with me as his coach I had to find the time. There was possibility that I could modify my schedule but first there had to be commitment from Donovan. When I spoke of this possibility I asked him to take time to decide.
Two weeks later he decided that he would train and that we should start to make up a schedule. We thus began a journey, both entering uncharted waters with the fears and uncertainty that change brings. In a way I felt like I was returning to a role that had lain dormant since the spring of 1971.
