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Hamilton to Optometry's Meeting attendees: Always get back up
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PHILADELPHIA – Scott Hamilton, a retired American figure skater and Olympic gold medalist, told the story of his rollercoaster life in urging attendees at the opening general session to get up no matter what.
Throughout his life, Hamilton explained, he encountered obstacle after obstacle.
He described himself as an “oops” who was adopted by a father with a PhD in biology and a nurturing mother.
However, as he grew older, his parents noticed that he was not growing on pace with other children. He recalled a tour of hospitals and doctors who had no answers. The last doctor finally recommended stopping all treatment and giving his parents, tired after years of therapies, a break.
Scott Hamilton
“And so I went to this brand-new skating rink and I walked in and it was just chilly in there and it was wet and I saw hundreds of kids,” Hamilton said. “Pretty soon I was skating around and thinking ‘I am skating as well as the best athletes in my grade.’”
He continued: “Self-esteem is a powerful, powerful thing. I never wanted to leave the rink.”
Even though he had found something that he truly loved, Hamilton still met hurdles, including bullying from peers and falling frequently in skating competitions.
Year after year, he worked hard to improve despite setbacks.
After moving up to the junior level and finishing higher than last place, Hamilton’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Due to the illness and the toll it would take on the family’s finances, Hamilton was given just 1 more year to skate.
“I landed my first triple and won the junior national title of the U.S.,” he said. “It was there that my mother said she had met a couple on the way to Colorado Springs for that championship. They were very wealthy, had no children and wanted to support my skating.”
Hamilton reverted to old ways after that, falling during performances and finishing toward the bottom of the pack.
Eventually, he made his way to Philadelphia and worked hard enough to make the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team. When he left, he was ranked fifth in the world.
He went on to win the national title in San Diego and found out that his father had suffered a massive stroke.
“The first thing that came to mind was, “Why can’t anything ever good happen to me without something on the other end destroying it?”
He later earned gold at the 1984 Olympics and, afterward, Hamilton turned professional, skating in Ice Capades for 2 years. He was let go after that and began his own skating show, Stars on Ice, which was successful and still tours today.
In his 11th year, he noticed that he couldn’t stand up straight. After several tests, doctors told him that he had a mass and diagnosed him with stage 3 testicular cancer.
“The fear was just extraordinary,” Hamilton told the audience. “It just comes over you like all the images of suffering and the images of surgeries and all that other stuff that I saw my mother go through and suffering and then you die. And I just thought, ‘nothing can be worse than this moment right now.’”
Regardless, he kept a positive attitude.
“No one was allowed in my room unless they could make me laugh,” Hamilton said. “My room became this kind of joyful place.”
After successfully battling cancer, Hamilton headed to Los Angeles to isolate himself and met his future wife, Tracy. Due to his cancer, the couple figured they would have difficulty conceiving naturally, but managed to do so anyway.
Hamilton stopped skating because of his new son and family, but noticed that he got depressed and had issues getting up in the morning. He went back to his doctors and was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
The tumor, determined to be a craniopharyngioma, accounted for his childhood lack of growth and development. Doctors were able to remove it successfully and soon after, his wife became pregnant again.
Eventually, his brain tumor returned and Hamilton underwent nine surgeries.
“It turned into an aneurysm, and when they obliterated the aneurysm, I thought it was game over,” he said. “And the morning after I was released from the hospital, I was blind in one eye.”
Doctors, after some trial and error, were able to restore his vision.
“This is coming to a new full circle because you all care about the health of people’s eyes and vision,” he said to the audience. “I get to say thank you – thank you for the work you do every day to give people the ability to look at their children and see beautiful sunsets…. The service that you provide is extraordinary because it gives people a quality of life and sometimes, many times, saves careers. To thank you for the work you do is extraordinary.”
After years away from the sport, Hamilton returned to the rink to perform at 51 years old and was determined to pull off his signature move, a backflip.
Though he was nervous about the jump, Hamilton actually fell during a double flip but managed to get back up and land the backflip.
In an interview after the performance, Hamilton recalled that a reporter asked him if he was sad that he had fallen.
“No, it defines everything. You fall down, you get up. You get hurt, you get up. You get sick, you get up. You go through a horrible time in your life, you get up, because that period in your life is this big,” Hamilton said, making a small measure with his fingers. “And you’ve got the whole expanse of your life.”
He concluded: “The next step you take will be the most glorious and the strongest one you’ve ever taken in your life.” – by Chelsea Frajerman