The Power of Belief

They said she would never walk again. Paralyzed from the
waist down, Beverly Kearney the Head Track and Field Coach
at the University of Texas laid in her hospital bed
recovering from 3 five hour surgeries to correct a protruded
spine, skull fracture and severe lacerations - the result of
a car crash.

It's mind boggling what a head on car crash and being thrown
50 feet from the car like a rag doll can do to the human
body. But what is even more amazing is the power of the
human spirit to overcome. Bev, a 5 time national champion
track star in college, never looked in the mirror after her
accident.

She never saw the lacerations or other physical affects of
the accident. She always saw herself as the person she was
before the accident. She never blamed anyone or said "why
me". When visitors came to her room all sad and crying she
kicked them out.

"It isn't a funeral she told them; it's a place of healing."
Bev didn't plan on getting worse. She planned on getting
better. She never embraced the Doctor's diagnosis when they
said she would have pain and other complications for the
rest of her life.

No, Bev was too busy and too focused on the fact that she
was going to walk again. "It's all about what you allow into
your mind," Bev told me. "And I only allowed the positive in
and kept the negative out." She even refused to get into a
wheel chair until they finally convinced her to use it only
to get to rehab to be able to walk again.

Then one day as Bev lay in her hospital bed looking at a
poster of The Texas Relays, the biggest track meet of the
year in front of 20,000 fans, she made the declaration that
she was going to stand up on her own two feet at that event.

An inconceivable notion to the average person since the
Texas Relays was only 4 months away. But inconceivable was
not in Bev's vocabulary. She believed it would be so and so
it would be.

4 Months later on a beautiful April day in front of 20,000
cheering fans Bev Kearney heard nothing but silence as time
stopped and she stood up on her own two legs. The power of
believing was on display for all to witness.

Several years later Bev is walking, and coaching and
thriving. She says she was a good coach before the accident.
But now she is a phenomenal coach. She and her team have won
two national championships since the accident and getting
ready for a third.

Her goals are to keep winning national titles, write books,
and help young women pursue their dreams through her non-
profit foundation "Pursuit of Dreams." Her message to these
girls and the world is: "Thoughts, Words, Deeds. If you can
think it and really believe it then you can do it."

I couldn't think of a better role model to share this
message than Beverly Kearney, University of Texas Head Track
and Field Coach and role model for us all. 
(Column By Jon Gordon)