Flaming spirit

Carrying the Olympic torch makes for a most amazing day

More than 11,000 torchbearers are taking the Olympic flame through 46 states as it zigzags the country, winding its way from Atlanta to Salt Lake City. Back in 1984, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee sold the right to carry the torch for a one-kilometer leg for $3,000 a pop (though several former Olympians did transport it for free). This year, there was something more Olympian about the selection process.

Salt Lake organizers asked ordinary citizens to nominate people who inspired them in essays of up to 100 words. People wrote about their teachers, coaches, parents, siblings or simply people they knew who provided inspiration. The torch also made a memorable ferry ride past the Statue of Liberty and the site of the World Trade Center with relatives of Sept. 11 victims aboard. I wrote to the committee about my cousin, Claire McDonough, last summer (no, no mention of my employer) and they wrote back offering me the chance to pass her the torch in her hometown of Wilmington, Del. I'm afraid it will take more than 100 words to tell you about her.

Claire was born 35 years ago with phocomelia, a genetic grouping of diseases that left her with no knees or elbows and some internal organs that need frequent retooling. Two years ago she had a kidney removed. At 44 inches tall, she is the family giant and I'm convinced that as her heart grew bigger there simply wasn't enough room for the rest of her. She stayed in a hospital until she was three months old and had to be fed through a tube in her stomach every two to three hours, including the wee hours, until she was four. It was a given that my Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill would be up at 3 a.m. running the blender, and neither ever complained about it. Doctors couldn't repair her cleft palate until then because her throat was simply too small. Along the way she passed these periodic checkpoints -- "Mr. and Mrs. McDonough, your daughter isn't likely to survive past . . ." -- that all came and went. It took her a few years to learn to walk and since the public schools in Wilmington wouldn't accept wheelchair-bound students back then, she couldn't attend classes until age eight. Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill rejected the well-meaning suggestions, whether medical, official or just neighborly, to segregate her from other children for her own protection. Instead they threw her into everything. As a teenager she survived wet plunges while canoeing and reveled in hot air ballooning. She had specially constructed skis take her down the slopes and occasionally into a few snowbanks. If someone working at the ski area asked her whether it was really a good idea for her to be shushing down a hill, she'd tell them, "Weebles wobble but they always get up. Don't worry, I'm flexible. I repair." She made up for four years of missed classes and graduated at age 18. She received standing ovations from fellow students when she graduated from Delaware Technical Community College, and she later earned a teaching certificate from Newman College.

Without fanfare, she spends her time these days helping people she figures are less fortunate than she is. She begins her workday as an early childhood daycare provider at the YMCA five days a week at 7 a.m. Four days a week, she works on the recreational staff of The Mary Campbell Center in Wilmington where she takes autistic children to ball games, bowling, movies or talks to them about focusing on their abilities. She started as a camper at Camp Menido for disabled children 30 years ago and has since progressed to volunteer, counselor and now assistant director. For the last 10 years she's been a performer with Able Arts, a theater group run by disabled actors. She drives herself to get to these places in the Clairemobile, a vehicle with computerized hand controls. Claire has to work for her words; she sort of leans back and shot puts them out. To step from place to place, she swings her legs in wide arcs. I dare you not to smile when she skips towards you. Sometimes if she hasn't seen you in a while, she'll flap her arms, let out a screech and start clapping before you've even said hi. She's the only person I know who can laugh while breathing in. A few minutes with her and you think, "Heck, don't sweat the small stuff."

Claire took the torch assignment seriously. In her free moments at the Y, she started lifting weights and walked a mile every day around a running track. About three hours before we were to carry the torch, we gathered at a car dealership to get our final instructions. "Remember this is not a race," a helpful volunteer named Lindsey Johnson told us. "Go at your own pace." "Are you going with us?" Claire asked hopefully. When Lindsey told her she was, Claire let out a big "yea," and did her version of a leaping fist pump. She asked this of about four people she met that morning. The more friends who could see her, the more special the day would be, and Claire was adopting everyone. She needn't have worried. I left our vehicle first, torch in hand and finished my leg. It went by quickly and the sensations were a blur. At three pounds, the torch felt lighter than I had expected, yet I had to use two hands because it was difficult to grip. I felt as though I was running too fast, when it was really no more than a slow jog (a slow jog being about my comfort zone). I couldn't actually see Claire around a corner, but I could sense that I was approaching her by the sound of the people around her and by the banners with neatly sketched torches, sneakers and shamrocks that dotted 12th St.

I'd been told ahead of time that I would need to follow her from outside the motorcycles that would be beside her once she received the torch and that only SLOC-assigned support runners could assist her directly during her fifth-of-a-mile leg. After I dipped my torch and lit Claire's, she motioned to one support runner that she'd carry the torch on her own. She sort of wrapped her arms around it and kept the flame above her head. The torch is more than two feet long, nearly as tall as Claire, and is very top-heavy, with a thick, but breakable glass top to protect the flame. After a few steps, discretion got the better of protocol and one of the support runners suggested I stay behind Claire in case she had trouble. "Claire, you OK?" I asked over her shoulder. "Yeah, you OK?" she asked. "Too fast for ya?" We went around two corners heading into Wilmington's Rodney Square and, as Claire reminded me later with a swift kick in the shins, her segment entailed a stiff uphill segment. We approached a staging area at the heart of the square to a crescendo of Olympic music and cheers and nearly got swept up in the waving flags. It is one thing to hear Bugler's Dream played before a segment of televised preliminary water polo, but entirely another to listen to it serenade someone who has quietly inspired you for 35 years. Having been randomly selected to bring it onto the stage, Claire placed the torch into a holding ring. Mayor James Baker, Governor Ruth Ann Minner and Senator Tom Carper, who were each there to give a welcoming address, then came over to shake her hand. A handshake? On this day? Instead Claire made an executive decision and jumped up and hugged them. The PA announcer then introduced the six torchbearers from Wilmington proper and I felt sorry for the other five. Claire's was the fourth name read, and before he could mention another, the announcer said, "Claire, it sounds like you brought a few friends with you today."

She had. Including the relatives, the neighbors, the colleagues in the Able Arts shirts, she had brought 100 or so supporters, but had made many more. A line of people formed to touch the torch. Miss Wilmington asked Claire to pose for a picture. A photographer snapped a photo for the city's Sunday News Journal and the radio reporters waited for interviews. "This is the most amazing day of my life," she told one of them. She deserved a day like this. Her mother and brother Billy, who was her best friend, had both passed away in the last two years. She mourned deeply, got a large "Billy" tattoo on her stomach and then went back to living the richest life imaginable. Claire is the sort of person who inspires empathy in people around her who wouldn't bring themselves to embrace their lives if she wasn't doing the same.

The torch is heading west now, with a few thousand torchbearers waiting for their "most amazing days." If you have an occasion to see it, do. Chances are your neighbors know a Claire McDonough who has lit some sort of spark in their lives and made people feel better about themselves for knowing her.

Sports Illustrated staff writer Brian Cazeneuve covers Olympic sports for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

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