But Now I See: My Journey from Blindness to Olympic Gold - Softcover

Holcomb, Steven; Eubanks, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1939529859 ISBN 13: 9781939529855

Verlag: BenBella Books, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

One of the top bobsledders in the world and leader of the four-man American team, Steven Holcomb had finished sixth in the 2006 Olympics and medaled in nearly every competition he entered. He was considered a strong gold contender for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. Talented, aggressive, and fearless, he was at the top of his game. But Steven Holcomb had a dangerous secret.

Steven Holcomb was going blind.

In the prime of his athletic career, he was diagnosed with keratoconus—a degenerative disease affecting 1 in 1,000 and leaving 1 in 4 totally blind without a cornea transplant. In the world of competitive sports, it was a dream killer. Not a sport for the timid, bobsledding speeds approach 100 miles per hour through a series of hairpin turns. Serious injuries—even deaths—can result. But Holcomb kept his secret from his coach, sled mates, and the public for months and continued to drive the legendary sled The Night Train.

When he finally told his coach, Holcomb was led to a revolutionary treatment, later named the Holcomb C3-R. With his sight restored to 20/20, Holcomb became the first American in 50 years to win the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation World Championship, and the first American bobsledder since 1948 to win the Olympic gold medal.

With a foreword by Geoff Bodine, NASCAR champion and founder of the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project, But Now I See is the intimate portrait of a man's pursuit of a dream, laced with humility and the faith to find a way when all seems hopeless. It's about knowing anything is possible and the gift of a second chance.

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Steven Holcomb was an American bobsled driver who won the Olympic gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the first gold medal in four-man bobsledding for the United States since 1948. He also won the 2009 World Championship in Lake Placid, N.Y., the first American to achieve that feat since 1959. A veteran of the Utah Army National Guard, Holcomb was the only Olympic athlete for whom a medical procedure is named: the Holcomb C3-R procedure for keratoconus, a degenerative eye disease that can lead to total blindness. Holcomb was cured of keratoconus from the procedure and went on to become America's most decorated bobsledder. Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, "America's TV Eye Doctor," who treated Steven's condition, has dedicated his book Perceptual Intelligence to Steven's memory.

Steve Eubanks is a bestselling author and sports writer who has collaborated with such noteworthy athletes as golf great Arnold Palmer, NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon, hall of fame football coach Lou Holtz, Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger, and nine-time world champion rodeo cowboy Ty Murray.

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But Now I See

My Journey From Blindness To Olympic Gold

By Steven Holcomb, Steve Eubanks, Debbie Harmsen

BenBella Books, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Steven Holcomb
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-939529-85-5

Contents

Copyright, 
Foreword, 
Prologue, 
One Blinding Fear, 
Two The Right Place, 
Three Right Time, 
Four Push, Ride, Repeat, 
Five Army Strong, 
Six Bumps on the Ice, 
Seven Grasping the D-Rings, 
Eight Fine Lines, 
Nine Bright Lights, Dark Corners, 
Ten Holcomb C3-R, 
Eleven The Beach, 
Twelve The Night Train, 
Epilogue, 
Career World Cup & World Championship Medals, 
Acknowledgments, 

CHAPTER 1

Blinding Fear

Fear is the most intense, stimulating high a human can experience. Nothing else comes close. From the "startle reflex" — that dilating and widening of the eyes and tightening of the muscles that comes about when your car hits a slick spot or someone sneaks up behind you and yells "Boo!" — to the off-the-charts heartbeats — the quick breathing, the adrenal gland in overdrive, and the sharpened senses as blood flees certain organs and rushes to major muscle groups — no drug can replicate the feeling of dozens of hormones flooding the body and billions of cells firing in response to fear. It is a reflex triggered deep inside the amygdala, a section of the brain near the cerebral cortex, one that causes you to tighten your face and duck your head when firecrackers go off close to you or when the scary monster jumps out in a movie. It is why women are able to lift cars off trapped children and arthritic old men are able to beat off young muggers.

This adrenaline rush is the reason some people jump off cliffs wearing wing suits or somersault off the Eiffel Tower holding their parachutes in their hands. It is why people line up for roller coasters, or strap bungee cords to their legs, or go off-trail to create their own ski runs. Despite your logical brain screaming for you to flee from such dangers, fear packs an intoxicating lure. The successful television show Fear Factor was created around the idea that people will do incredible things once immersed in the emotion of fear. The rush makes you forget the mundane problems of life. You become totally immersed in now.

Great athletes know the sensation better than most. That instant before the football is snapped, amid the yelling and shifting and watching as the man in front of you prepares to hurl his body at you with all the force he can muster, those precious seconds create a feeling that is unmatched — and irreplaceable. Many professional football players struggle and flounder in their personal lives after leaving the game. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Kevin Carter told me, "Every NFL player has trouble coming down off the high after leaving the league. Some handle it better than others, but every player feels it."

It's why Herschel Walker, a successful businessman in the food industry, became a mixed martial arts fighter, and why Chad Ochocinco chose to ride a bull and wrestle an alligator during the brief NFL lockout. It's also why boxers seem to always stay in the ring one fight too long and why race car drivers continue to compete well into their forties. The high is incredibly addictive.

Some people call it "butterflies" or "jitters," but whatever the name, the same physiology defines it. Epinephrine and norepinephrine cause the skin to constrict and the glucose levels in the blood to increase. Arteries and veins expand to increase blood flow, nostrils flare, and lung capacity increases. That chemical reaction is why a champion skier can be sweating like crazy in the starting gate even though it's freezing outside and why a sprinter can get chills on a ninety-degree afternoon as he puts his feet on the starting block. No matter how many times an athlete has been called on to make the crucial final play, that hair-on-the-arms feeling and churn in the pit of the stomach never goes away. Athletes call it something else — "nerves" perhaps, because no champion will use the "F" word — but the autonomic responses don't lie: their bodies are responding to fear.

For as long as I can remember, I've had a healthy working relationship with fear. My father had me on skis before I was fully potty trained, and I raced the slopes of Park City, Utah, long before I could read or write. When I was four years old, I was going off-trail, weaving through the trees and finding my own way, much to the horror of my mother, who was an intermediate skier and always rushing to catch up. The faster I got, the more challenging the runs became. Rarely did I glide leisurely down the mountain. Every run was about going a little faster. Crashing only served as a reminder that this wasn't badminton. Snow, ice, and steep slopes are the most inhospitable environments humans encounter this side of outer space. Preparation with a pinch of fear keeps you sharp, especially when sliding down a run.

Throughout my brief competitive skiing career, I was always trying to push the limits. Could I take a straighter downhill line? Could I get closer to the gates? Could I get lower, streamline my body to make myself more aerodynamic? Could I squeeze a tenth of a second off an already breakneck run? But all those questions were really asking the same thing: could I stare fear in the face without flinching?

I haven't discussed any of this with my teammates because it's not necessary, and talking about such things is not what athletes do. If you go into a team locker room before a championship game, you don't hear guys talking about fear or what they are feeling. Most athletes say nothing, preferring to prepare in the serenity of silence. But a few, like Jason Kidd of the 2011 World Champion Dallas Mavericks, will say things like "Stay focused." Prior to the Mavericks' final game against the Miami Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals, Kidd and Jason Terry were the only players who spoke — Kidd preached "focus" and Terry built up his teammates — but other than that the Mavericks' locker room, like those of most championship teams, was as quiet as a Sunday school class.

The fear athletes have is natural, and it can be used to advantage: fear keeps you on your toes and helps you focus your control. But sometimes there are situations beyond your control, and that is a different kind of fear. Experts call this "conditioned fear," which is different from the response to a lion attack or a mugger jumping out from behind a tree. Conditioned fear is learned and nurtured. It's the growing alarm parents feel when their daughter is late getting home from a high school dance, or the feeling you get when the doctor says you need "additional tests." It's the anxiety of waiting on mammogram results, or the back-of-your-mind dread that you'll suffer a heart attack, be diagnosed with cancer, or become paralyzed in a car crash. Some of these fears are rational (like poisonous snakes and high-crime neighborhoods), while others metastasize into phobias.

At the height of my career, I faced a frightening situation over which I had no control and I learned firsthand what conditioned fear feels like. My eyesight was deteriorating, and I had just been told that I would eventually go blind. First, I was scared. Then I became depressed, not gee-I'm-sad-my-team-lost depressed, but seriously, clinically, can't- get-out-of-bed depressed. No amount of training or experience can prepare you for the full range of emotions that you go through and the physical...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BenBella Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1939529859
• ISBN 13: 9781939529855
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande