From the Grand Rapids Press:

Tanis Hooker is a freshman member of the varsity swim team at East Grand Rapids High School.

And he’s blind.

In a sport where vision is of paramount importance in staying a straight course and sighting end walls for turns, Tanis “feels” his way, using limited vision in his right eye and intuitive powers to negotiate what’s grueling enough for any person with normal vision.

“I don’t know how he does it,” said teammate Garrett Groves, a senior. “I can’t even imagine swimming blind.”

Neither could EGR swim coach Butch Briggs.  He was exposed to some visually impaired kids during his early teaching days but, over the course of four decades of coaching, Briggs had never taken on a blind swimmer.

Bottom line: “I’ll tell you what,” Briggs said. “He’s going to do so much more for this team than we’re going to do for him.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 10:48 pm and is filed under blindness/visual impairments, exercise/sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post