[NFBMV] Fwd: 'I’m a blind athlete': Libbey grad inspires others as Paralympic judo hopeful | Toledo Blade

[Carolyn Peters]

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Carolyn Peters <dr.carolyn.peters at gmail.com>
Date: January 9, 2020 at 1:06:28 PM EST
To: Carolyn Peters <drcarolyn-peters at att.net>
Subject: 'I’m a blind athlete': Libbey grad inspires others as Paralympic judo hopeful | Toledo Blade



https://www.toledoblade.com/local/city/2020/01/09/libbey-grad-with-limited-eyesight-paralympic-judo-hopeful-toledo-trey-lampkin/stories/20200108141

'I’m a blind athlete': Libbey grad inspires others as Paralympic judo hopeful
Whoomp!

There’s a pretty impressive thud when heavyweight Trey Lampkin outmaneuvers his judo opponent and flips him down to the mat.

Whump!

It’s a muscular sound hearing him get into position. It’s a grind to do that flip, a sweat-drenched labor of love. But even with the strength he has in his 240-pound body, Mr. Lampkin uses more technique and strategy than he does brawn.

Judo is like a very physical game of chess. Make a bad move and you’ll mentally scurry around like prey, hoping your opponent doesn’t have predator instincts and capitalize on your mistake before you can correct it. Make a great move, though, and your opponent’s back winds up flat on the mat.

Mr. Lampkin can sort of see that when he does it to an opponent.

Sort of.

But everything’s kind of a blur as he’s about to do his cat-like pounce and finish off a match with a pin.

Mr. Lampkin was diagnosed with something called Stargardt disease just after graduating from Libbey High School a little over a decade ago, a condition that limits his field of vision to a foot or two.

Also called juvenile macular degeneration, Stargardt disease leads to a progressive loss of vision over time. He believes it started coming on in sixth grade, but wasn’t diagnosed until two weeks after his high school graduation.

“My doctors told my Mom I was faking it,” Mr. Lampkin, 29, said.

He’s legally blind, and as upsetting as that was at first, he’s come to own that.

“I’m a blind athlete,” Mr. Lampkin said. “I like to own what I am. So I feel like I'm a blind athlete because that's how I'm treated.”

Nothing, he said, gives him more joy than inspiring people with disabilities to own up to what they have and make the best of their situation.

“I want to show people that if you put in the work you will get to where you want to go,” he said.

Now a single father in South Toledo, Mr. Lampkin said he spent most of his childhood in a rough part of central Toledo where his mother feared he might end up with the wrong crowd.

He has his heart set on competing for the United States in the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo from Aug. 25 to Sept. 6. He heads off for a tournament in Montreal on Thursday which could get him a step closer, followed by a major tournament in Germany at the end of February.

Many of his expenses come out of his own pocket.

That’s one thing a lot of people don’t realize about those with limited vision, the cost of transportation. Even getting to a grocery store means bus fare or rides from friends or family members. Mr. Lampkin said he cobbles together money to pay for most of his equipment and other expenses, including gas money for people to take him to his daily workouts.

“It is very expensive,” he said.

His odyssey began back in sixth grade, when he was a youngster at Warren Elementary School watching the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks unfold.

The kid from Moody Manor Apartments, who was moved to South Toledo by his mother in eighth grade to help keep him away from drugs and gangs, harbored anger for years about those attacks and the way they made his beloved teacher, Miss Jones, cry.

Mr. Lampkin made it his life’s mission to serve his country upon his graduation from high school. Little did he know that his dream of doing that by joining the military had vanished because of his failing eyesight.

“I just feel like I haven't done my duty yet,” he said. “I feel like Americans have to serve in some way.”

So Mr. Lampkin — who’d wrestled in high school — dedicated himself to serving his country as a member of the U.S. Paralympics team.

Wrestling is not recognized as a Paralympics sport, though. That prompted Mr. Lampkin to take his wrestling background and begin studying judo just two years ago.

Gary Monto, 72, of Oregon, is a local sensei, the word for a martial arts teacher. He began studying judo at age 5 and has been involving with that form of martial arts for all 67 years since then. He’s impressed how quickly Mr. Lampkin has learned. The techniques learned in wrestling translate well to judo, he said.

“Trey came to us with the wrestling background,” Mr. Monto said. “He wasn’t afraid to get [thrown down] on the mat.”

Learning to get thrown down on the mat and bounce back up is a skill that can often take non-wrestlers two or three years to master. People instinctively resist that downward motion, he said.

Another Toledo-area sensei, Tyson Coates, 48, who worked out on a mat Tuesday night at the American Academy of Martial Arts/Judan Judo off Lewis Avenue, said Mr. Lampkin has a great combination of speed and strength, and seems to listen more intently to them because his limited eyesight keeps him from being distracted visually. He said Mr. Lampkin “feels the movement [of an opponent] whereas a sighted person sees it.”

Both Mr. Monto and Mr. Coates have earned black belts. Mr. Lampkin now has a brown belt.

If Mr. Lampkin makes it to the Paralympics, he will be matched up against other heavyweights who have limited eyesight or are blind. Paralympic judo is restricted to visually impaired competitors.

Judo is one of 22 sports at the Paralympics, which is for athletes with a wide range of disabilities. It has been part of those games since 1988.

Governed by the International Paralympic Committee, the Paralympics were created in Great Britain in 1948 and have grown in popularity. Today, there are thousands of competitors from more than 100 countries — yet a huge funding gap remains between those athletes and Olympians.

Maj. Gen. John C. Harris, Jr., who serves as Ohio Adjutant General, took a long pause after being told about Mr. Lampkin’s dream since childhood to serve his country — even though it means trying to do that as an athlete instead of as a serviceman.

“That is a wonderful story,” Major General Harris said, explaining how it inspires him to hear of people so “dedicated, focused, and determined.”

He said Mr. Lampkin’s story resonates with him as being one of today’s “young folks who understand purpose.”



Sent from my iPhone
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbmv_nfbnet.org/attachments/20200109/c48e1324/attachment.html>