The Creation of a Phenomenal Woman
ImlovinIt…loving what? Ms. Wilma Rudolph’s rise.
It’s not that I had to go back to 1940 to find a phenomenal female athlete, but I will call this my throwback…remembering Ms Wilma Rudolph.
Whew! She was a fighter! So determined. So Focused. A true believer in self and unity.
I always wonder how the great athletes rise to the highest heights and accomplish the unthinkable. How did Wilma Rudolph, a poor black baby born number 20 of 22 children towards the end of the Great Depression in a segregated America, accomplish such amazing achievements?
On her fan page at www.wilmarudolph.net, Ms. Rudolph is quoted as saying “…It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s all a matter of discipline. I was determined to discover what life held for me beyond the inner-city streets.”
See, Ms Wilma Rudolph was born into physical and economic hardship, what we call “the struggle”. She was born premature, weighing 4.5lbs and encountered sickness after sickness (mumps, measles, scarlet fever, double pneumonia). She lived through all of this without hospital care, just Momma and them. At age 4, a doctor informed her mother, Mrs. Rudolph, that young Wilma had polio and it was destroying her left leg and foot. The doctor said she would never walk but her mother didn’t buy into it. Wilma said “My doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.” So either once or twice a week for two years, Mrs. Rudolph took Wilma to Meharry Hospital, the black medical college at Fisk University. Fisk was 50 miles away from her hometown of Clarkesville, TN. Remember this happened in the 1940’s when America was just coming out of the Great Depression so times were still very hard and life was very much segregated! Is this not love, belief, and determination passed down?!
So they taught Wilma to walk with a leg brace and then showed Mrs. Rudolph exercises she could do with Wilma at home. With the help of her family (remember she had 22 siblings) she was walking normally by age 12. Wilma, the athlete emerged! From neighborhood street ball player to 3 time Olympic Champ! (Not to mention the myriad of accomplishments during and after receiving Gold…look her up in one of the search engines.)
In my opinion, her whole life story can be coined “the creation of a phenomenal woman.” I love her fight from birth to 12, her fight against segregation, her desire to find her purpose in life which reached far beyond a track star and included serving as a role model and mentor to other female athletes including Florence Griffith Joyner and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Her life story is very inspiring and significant in so many ways, but I don’t want to write a book, for it is not my forte, but I will leave you with some very inspiring quotes that I copied from her fan page and ESPN, and I encourage you to check out her story.
- When asked about her leg braces Wilma replied “My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.”
- “I believe in me more than anything in this world.”
- Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion. The potential for greatness lives within each of us.
- The triumph can’t be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is.
Wilma Rudolph…the chick I dig. Imlovinit!!!
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- Hoop Dreams
- Erin Andrews Talks to Oprah
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