‘High school wrestler learns to overcome disability’

From the Washington Post, a feature on high school senior Michael Spriggs, one of the most valuable members of his high school wrestling team for the past two years. He has been visually impaired all his life, and has been blind for more than five years.

Team members credit his strong upper body strength, his ability to anticipate his opponents and his stamina. Spriggs learned the wrestling moves by relying on his sense of touch.

Spriggs is one of the approximately 93,600 blind or visually impaired school-age children in the United States, according to the National Federation of the Blind. What separates him from many others, however, is his ability to have assimilated almost seamlessly with the sighted student population at Flowers.

“What Michael does is he showcases abilities of blind athletes against sighted athletes and helps to break down the barriers,” said Mark Lucas, executive director of the United States Association of Blind Athletes in Colorado Springs, where Spriggs competed last summer for its junior national judo team.

“The majority of [blind students] sit on the sideline in PE class because a PE teacher doesn’t know how to integrate that kid into the curriculum.”

With a video and slideshow. Language accompanying this piece reflects the stereotypical “overcoming adversity” view of disability. Some examples:

• Blindness “doesn’t deter” wrestler
• Wrestler “learns to overcome disability”
• Wrestler “breaks down barriers;”
• Blindness “hasn’t stopped him;”
• Wrestler is “inspirational force;” and
• Spriggs “has provided his teammates and coach with a new perspective on their sport, as well as in life.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 6:55 am and is filed under blindness/visual impairments, exercise/sports, language, personal stories, success stories. 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