Team for Tomorrow athletes visit hospitals, schools

Holding her husband's hand, USA Paralympic skier Stephani Victor had to fight back tears as she walked through the doors of the Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City following a Team for Tomorrow visit with the hospital's patients.

When three-time cancer survivor Augusto "Goose" Perez, a Paralympic wheelchair curling athlete, visited kids at Galisano Children's Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., while bringing along his own twin daughter and son, memories of chemotherapy treatments hit him as he saw kids with balding heads walking down the corridor.

Victor, Perez and many other winter U.S. Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls visited hospitals and schools around the nation during the holiday season. The athletes not only cheered up the hundreds of kids they visited, but also the kids touched the athletes.

"It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful,'' Victor said. "For me, it was pretty emotional," Victor said.

Said U.S. speed skater Katherine Reutter: "Stephani was a big inspiration.''

Team for Tomorrow visits to hospitals in Salt Lake City and Syracuse were two of six within a one-week period for Winter Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, during which athletes delivered digital cameras and Olympic medallions donated by the U.S. Olympic Committee. More visits are being planned in the coming weeks, according to U.S. Olympic Committee spokeswoman Lindsay DeWall Hogan.

Victor and Perez are two of 13 Winter Olympic and Paralympic athlete-ambassadors in the Team of Tomorrow program, which was created following the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games with 10 summer athlete-ambassadors participating in Habitat for Humanity projects nationwide.

As the athletes discovered, the visits were beneficial for both the youngsters and themselves. Some of the athletes have had their share of personal struggles and they were able to help inspire the children with their life lessons.

"I tell people that in order to see the rainbow, you must look for the rain,'' Perez said. "And sometimes it looks like it pours out, but eventually there is a rainbow.''

A visit by members of the U.S. figure skating team to Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colo., in late December included pairs figure skater John Coughlin giving away some of those stuffed animals that you may see thrown on the ice after a stellar performance at a competition.

"It was fun," Coughlin said. "I was Santa Claus for the day, pulling a little red wagon (which was filled with those stuffed animals)."

The Salt Lake hospital visit especially touched home for Victor, 20, who is from Park City, Utah, which is about 30 miles east of Salt Lake City. Victor, a five-time World Cup winner, four-time world champ in alpine skiing and one-time Paralympic gold medalist, had both of her legs amputated following an accident in 1995 in which an out-of-control vehicle pinned her against her own car. Her visit to the Primary Children's Medical Center was Dec. 20, one day after the 14th anniversary of that accident.

As she walked through those doors, the memories tugged hard at her heart.

"If I can just be an example to them," Victor said.

During the visit, Victor said, a 7-year-old and 6-year-old set of brothers followed her around, hanging on every word, every movement.

"It was amazing," she said. "He (the 6-year-old) stuck to my side. I don't know why."

When one of the brothers "teared up," Victor talked to him, one on one.

"It‘s very contagious, very enthusiastic, of taking a celebrity status as an athlete and bringing that into the community," Victor said.

Perez, who often volunteers at hospitals and is a volunteer Spanish tutor and soccer coach at local schools, discovered the same thing in Syracuse.

"It was really nice because they can see that people are thinking about them," he said. "I got a couple of pictures of some of the kids. Their smiles went ear to ear."

For many of these athletes, they said these visits aren't the end of their community work, whether done through an official Team for Tomorrow function or not. Perez said he will return to Galisano Children's Hospital with more autographed photographs and more members of the Paralympic curling team. Victor plans to work on a Habitat for Humanity house in Salt Lake after the Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver are done.

The training facility for figure skaters in Colorado Springs is located next to Memorial Hospital, so Coughlin is making plans to go back, while also corresponding as a pen pal with the kids he already has met.

Said Coughlin: "It was kind of nice to put a smile on their faces for a day.''

And, most likely, even longer.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Paul D. Bowker is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.

Tags: Augusto "Goose" Perez, Augusto Perez, Katherine Reutter, Paul D. Bowker, Stephani Victor, Team For Tomorrow, Team for Tomorrow Humanitarian Relief Fund