Page 18 - Peter Farrelly Issue

ketball, baseball and, later on, track and field, I realized that when it comes to sport, sport is sometimes in its purest form, it doesn’t matter if you have a disability. It doesn’t matter if you’re missing your legs or you have your legs. It doesn’t matter your race, creed, or color. The only thing you want to do in that moment is to win for your team. And that’s it. And I can remember, I was playing a basketball game, it was fourth quarter, 15 sec- onds left, and I was dribbling the basketball and the kid on the other side was playing the hardest defense that I’ve ever seen anybody play at that point in my life. I found it interesting. He didn’t feel sorry for me in that moment. He didn’t take it easy on me because I had a disability. He gave me his best. I got to truly see his best! Not only truly see my opponent’s best, but I got to be my best and use all my talents and my skills to score this basket, to score the win on my team. And he did everything that he possibly could to stop me from scoring.
I love that feeling! I love that aspect of not being judged or not being taken easy upon. That’s when I realized that, man, I could use sports to gain respect amongst my community. I could use sports to show people that I’m no different than they are. I might look different. and I might have a disability, but it doesn’t define who I am as an individual. If I can go out there and drop 20 points or if I go out there and break world records on the track, that’s how I’m going to get ‘em.
Kaplan: Awesome! Like you said, you’ve shattered mul- tiple records. To what do you credit your tenacity on the track?
Leeper: My tenacity comes from the mindset that my mother, my father, my immediate family, my brother instilled in me at a very early age. I can remember a time when my dad pulled me to the side–I was only 9 or 10 years old and I had a new basketball coach. And before we went to the practice, he said, “Blake, there’s going to be a time where you guys will be running, doing sprints back and forth or doing something in prac- tice, and the coach is going to let you take it off because you’re missing both of your legs. And when the coach does that and they give you a way out, don’t take it. Do not take it. You finish every rep and every round.”
And lo and behold, at the end of the practice, we were running sprints, we got to the last two or three sprints, and the coach says, “Blake, you don’t have to run these two or three sprints.” That’s when it was a realization for me that, “Wow, people do view me as different! They do see me as a different individual.” I remembered that conversation that my father had with me, saying, “You finish every rep and every round just like every- body else.” Having that mindset. My mother would always tell me, “You have one disability, but you have a thousand other abilities that make you a special person. So, having that mindset of always focusing on my abili- ties and what I do have, I would have to definitely credit that to my family.
Kaplan: That’s great! What was the pathway to becom- ing one of the fastest men in the world?
Leeper: The pathway to become one of the fastest men
18 ABILITY