Heart of a Champion: The Story of Jean Driscoll

CBN.com Have you ever felt that your lot in life is just unfair? Jean Driscoll faced the kind of obstacles most of us never dream of.

TIM JOHNSON (Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the University of Illinois): Coach Turner, from the University of Illinois - big 10 champions, coach of the year, says, "I want Jean to speak to my football team. Champions want to know champions. And Jean is a champion and it starts with her heart."

JULIE BLIM: Jean Driscoll is a champion. She's a world-class athlete, Boston Marathon racer, Olympic silver medalist, author and motivational speaker.

JEAN DRISCOLL: Never. I never would have expected -- it has been an incredible blessing.

BLIM: Here's what's really incredible: what Jean went through to get here! You see, she was born with spina bifida. Her spine didn't close the right way in the womb.

DRISCOLL: So I got stared at a lot, teased a lot, I fell down easily. My feet turned to the side, and I drug my legs behind, had ugly brown stainless-steel braces on my feet.

BLIM: Jean was even an Easter Seals child. She had her picture taken with former Miss America named Terry Meeuwsen. But growing up was mostly sad. Sometimes her siblings forgot to pull her home in the wagon.

DRISCOLL: I could walk to edge of the playground and could see my house, and I'd know they were watching Scooby-Doo and eating after-school snacks. And I was still stuck up at the playground. There was so much frustration and sadness and disappointment that went along with it.

BLIM: And the worst was yet to come. At 13, Jean took a sharp fall on her bike, slamming her hip into the concrete. It took an excruciating triple surgery to try to mend the hip socket. Jean wore a "body cast" for almost a year!

DRISCOLL: I'd look out our big picture window and imagine what it would be like to be free. I'd see little kids walking down the street and wish that I was them.

BLIM: What got you through 11 months in that body cast?

DRISCOLL: The hope that I hung on to for all that time was that when I got that body cast off, maybe I'd be able to walk better than before, and it would be one more way that I would look like the other kids. I wanted so much to look like them - I felt like them, I just didn't look like them.

BLIM: Finally, it was time.

DRISCOLL: The doctor came in with x-rays and put them up in front of the light and said, "We're sorry - just from sitting up in bed, your hip is dislocating again. There's nothing more we can do. You simply don't have enough muscle in your lower body to hold your hip in its socket." I was devastated. There was a point where I was so down that I was suicidal, and everyday I'd think of a way that I could extinguish my life because I didn't feel like I had anything to offer this world. I felt I was only a burden. I felt I was sucking the finances out of our family's home. I just was trouble.

BLIM: One day a friend invited her to a wheelchair soccer game.

DRISCOLL: He said it's a really cool adapted game. Well I heard that word "adapted" and said, "no way! I'm not going to play an adapted game." I didn't want people to think the only friends I could get were people in wheelchairs.

BLIM: But she went anyway.

DRISCOLL: I got there and it was nothing like it thought it would be! Chairs were crashing, banging, bodies were flying, this is sports! I found this whole new world of sport and I was doing a different sport every night.

BLIM: Jean graduated from high school and went to college. But with school stress and buried anger, she wasn't doing well. A nurse friend told her how to trust God.

DRISCOLL: So I asked Jesus into my heart to avoid going to hell, but didn't understand Christianity as a lifestyle. Besides I was dealing with anger, trying to figure out why I was the way I am, why God didn't heal me.

BLIM: Sports were what kept Jean going. She was even noticed by a college basketball recruiter.

DRISCOLL: He was telling me it was an all women's team at the University of Illinois. He was recruiting me - he wanted me on his team and it felt really good!

BLIM: Jean had no idea how good life was about to get. She went to the University of Illinois, and excelled in basketball and racing. She had a zest for life like never before. Her coach thought Jean was up to another challenge.

DRISCOLL: I did not want to do a marathon -- 26.2 miles was too far to go.

BLIM: Jean told him she'd do one.

DRISCOLL: And when I crossed the finish line, Marty said, "Do you know what you did?" I said, "I came across the finish line, I didn't die in the middle of the race, I didn't get lost, I did a marathon!" And he said, "Yeah, and you qualified to do the Boston Marathon!" I was like (makes face). He said, "Jean, people dream about doing the Boston Marathon -- you can't qualify for the Boston Marathon and not go do it! It's the oldest, most prestigious race in the world!"

BLIM: You guessed it! Jean started six months of grueling training for the 1990 Boston Marathon. Makeshift hills, weight training, 120 miles a week - sometimes in the snow - and the roller machine.

DRISCOLL: I'm sitting on the starting line of the Boston Marathon yelling at my coach in my mind - "Marty, I do not belong in this race, I haven't trained on hills like this!" One of the most amazing things that's ever happened to me in my life happened that day. 26.2 miles after I said I didn't belong in that marathon, I won my 1st Boston Marathon -- and I broke the record by 7 minutes!

BLIM: Jean says that day changed her life forever

DRISCOLL: I was breaking world records, I was winning races, making good money, but I still had this hole inside of me and this unhappiness.

BLIM: A Christian friend and a good church helped her sort things out.

DRISCOLL: After finally realizing it is a relationship, a loving relationship and that god loves me, he is not this judgmental being ready to strike me down. Once I started to get that, my heart was softened.

BLIM: Jean went on to win the Boston Marathon seven years in a row -- only two athletes in history have done that! An eighth win would make her the all-time record holder. But things didn't go her way for three years in a row. Now 2000 was her year.

DRISCOLL: And now I've won more Boston Marathons than anybody in 106 years in any division - 8 times!

BLIM: Jean really wants people to understand what it's like to have a disability. When I talk to people, when of the first things I tell them is having a disability is a characteristic, like hair color or eye color - not a defining principle. You said you hoped and prayed the lord would heal you physically, but feel he's healed you in other ways.

DRISCOLL: God has healed me, not physically, not the way I thought I wanted to be healed, but he's healed my heart, and healed my mind and given my a perspective that enables me now to encourage people.

BLIM: Jean has founded the non-profit organization - "determined to win," and hopes to jumpstart the dreams of others. With "wheels for the world" she works as a trainer and advocate.

RANDY (her pastor): This platform that she's on is ultimately not about her, it's about loving God and loving people.

DRISCOLL: I believe the biggest limits are ones we place on ourselves or allow others to place on us. Once you recognize that, you're already in the air midway jumping over hurdles in front of you. Oh, it turns light bulbs on . I love it!