Once, a young boy born in America in 1909 was caught in a fire accident in his school and was assumed that he would not live at the age of eight. His legs were very badly burned. He had lost all the flesh on his knees and shins and all the toes on his left foot. Also, his transverse arch was practically destroyed. His mother was told that he was sure to die, for the terrible fire had devastated the lower half of his body. Even if he were to survive, he would be a cripple throughout his life.
But the brave boy did not want to die nor did he want to be a cripple. His determination to walk was indomitable and his persistence finally paid off. It was in the early summer of 1919 when he first tried to walk again, roughly two years after the accident. He began to walk to school, then run to school, to run for the sheer joy of running. Later in college he made the track team.
In February 1934, in New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden, this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who could never hope to run – this determined young man Dr. Glenn Cunningham was considered as the greatest American miler of all time. He received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States in 1933.
Even after retirement, Cunningham has done a lot of inspiring things. He earned a master’s degree from the University of Iowa and a PhD from New York University. After retiring from competitions in 1940 he served as director of physical education at Cornell College in Iowa for four years. Later he opened the Glenn Cunningham Youth Ranch in Kansas, where he and his wife helped 10,000 needy and abused children
Such a motivating story of the person which went all the way from being a failure to #success.
#GetVal #SportValues #HardWork #Determination