Comeback Kid

As a boy around 1917, Glenn Cunningham's job was to warm the schoolhouse each day by lighting a fire in the pot-bellied coal stove. On one of these days, however, the teacher and students arrived to find the schoolhouse in flames, and Glenn inside. They rescued him, but only after he had sustained major burns to the lower half of his body. In the hospital, the boy could hear the doctor telling his mother that he would surely die. When he did survive, though, he again heard the doctor, who said that it would have been better if he had died. Since the fire had burned so much of his flesh, Glenn would surely be crippled, unable to use his legs. This boy had different plans, however.

After being released from the hospital, his mother would massage his legs daily, and yet, there were still no signs of life. He could not even feel, let alone move, his legs. For this reason, he was consigned to a wheelchair, when he wasn’t bedridden. On one occasion, his mother took him outside for some fresh air. Instead of sitting in his wheelchair, however, he threw himself from the chair and began to drag his legs across the lawn. When he reached the fence around their lot, he used it to hoist himself up and drag himself along it. He continued this practice day after day, until his walks created a worn path around the fence. After his daily massages and his consistent effort, Glenn was able to stand, then walk with difficulty, then walk without assistance, and finally, he was able to run.

Now, this ability to run became significant for him and for others because this man eventually became “one of the greatest track stars of all time.” Among other nicknames, he was called “The Kansas Flyer” because of his incredible long-distance speed. After setting records for the fastest mile runs in his high school, Cunningham eventually earned the fastest mile time in history, in 1933 running the mile at 4:06.8; and in 1938, he set an indoor mile record of 4:04.4, beating the record by two full seconds. Up to that point in history (1938), only eighteen times in recorded history had an individual run a mile in under 4:10. Cunningham had then accomplished that feet for the eighth time. All this started when a boy made it a determined goal to pick himself up and walk as he had done before.* Perhaps we can do the same when we feel consigned to our own figurative wheelchairs.

*The current mile record is 3:43.13, run by a Moroccan named Hicham el Guerrouj in 1999.