Monday, June 21, 1998
Success is in the eye of the beholder
BY DEBORAH KENDRICK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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To help
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In preparation for the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, Australia, Lynn Wachtell is seeking financial sponsorship, as well as shoes, shirts and coaching assistance. If you can help, e-mail Mr. Wachtell at wachtell@ix.netcom.com.
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''The thing about being a father with a disability,'' says Lynn Wachtell, a Covedale father of two, ''is that our normal isn't everyone else's normal, but it's normal for us.
''We can never have the same schedule that a household with able-
bodied parents will have, but our routine is normal for us - and kids adjust to it. They've got no choice!''
Mr. Wachtell, a computer specialist for the Internal Revenue Service in Florence, may not have the flexibility other parents have in terms of transportation, but his life and the lives of his children are far from static.
Son David, a ninth-grader at Clark Montessori, East End, plays baseball, basketball and soccer. Daughter Kristalynn, who will be a sixth-grader at St. Theresa, Price Hill, dances her way around the Midwest in myriad tap and jazz competitions.
Mr. Wachtell, when not attending one of his kids' competitions or developing programs for the Internal Revenue Service, has become a world-class runner. He began in 1991 and has been running ever since.
Totally blind in his left eye and legally blind in his right, Mr. Wachtell has a history since childhood of finding ways of doing what he wants to do with limited vision and getting tremendous satisfaction out of life.
At work, he uses a 25-inch monitor and magnification software to increase the size of characters on the screen. Because he needs to have his face directly on the page to see it, a music stand holds manuals or other documents vertically at his desk to enable him to look from paper to monitor without bobbing his head up and down for one word at a time.
As a parent, he says, the greatest adaptation is dealing without transportation. Since his wife, Jo, is also blind, there is no driver in the Wachtell household. Just getting places can be complicated.
Yet, his philosophy is: ''You find a way around it. You get over it.''
In running, his only real adaptation has been to run with other people. Although many visually impaired and blind runners use a sighted guide - a single trained individual to run alongside the blind runner - Mr. Wachtell says he sees enough to follow others without a guide.
In training for the World Championships for the Blind, July 15-27 in Madrid, Spain, he runs an average of 60 miles a week with ''20 wonderful people.'' The group, he says, has become an extended family.
For cross-training, he swims, bikes (with another cycling friend just ahead) and lifts weights.
In the past five months, he has run in marathons and races throughout Greater Cincinnati, as well as in California, Tennessee, Cleveland and Columbus.
Earlier this year at the 1998 Boston Marathon, his third, he finished first among 15 visually impaired runners with a time of 3 hours, 2 minutes - his Boston best - finishing 1,230th among 10,307 participants. (His best marathon ever: 2 hours, 58 minutes in Chicago.) While training for Madrid, Mr. Wachtell has his heart set on the next big dream: the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, Australia. Held immediately following and in the same facilities as the ''other'' Olympics, the Paralympics gives athletes with disabilities an opportunity to compete against peers from around the world in sports ranging from cycling to swimming to track and field to soccer.
The key to going is sponsorship. The IRS is extremely supportive of his athletic success, he says, but as a government entity cannot offer financial backing.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wachtell's spirit has rubbed off on his children, both fully sighted.
''I've taught them never to be intimidated by anybody. That's the way my mother raised me - I was never a sheltered little blind kid - and that's how it should be. If you don't let them grow, they'll be in your house till they're 30 or 40!''
To them, having a dad who's a champion - who happens to have a disability - is just part of normal.
Deborah Kendrick, a Cincinnati free-lance writer, is a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities. Write: Deborah Kendrick, Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; e-mail: 71340.473@compuserve.com.
KENDRICK ARCHIVE
