The Script

Part One: Jean Driscoll

Narrator: Today the camera's focus is on Jean Driscoll the champion. It is a far different picture from this one taken in 1976. At the age of ten, Jean was an Easter Seal poster child in her hometown of Milwaukee. She grew up on Milwaukee's northwest side with her three younger brothers and older sister. Her father James was a utility worker and her mother Angela, a nurse.

Angela Driscoll: She's always been a very determined little person. I think she was kind of born with that personality. Things she set out to accomplish, she did accomplish.

Narrator: Jean was born with spina bifida, a hole in her spinal column which affected the use of her legs. When Jean was two years old she got her first pair of leg braces. This allowed her the freedom to run with other children on the playground. But her legs were not as strong. Doctors told her parents that she might be dependent on them the rest of her life.

Jean Driscoll: When I was growing up it was a bad thing. It was an inconvenience. It was something I felt guilty about. It sucked all the money from our family. It made my mom get up in the middle of her night - she worked third shift and slept during the day. But, if I had a doctor's appointment she had to get up in the middle of her night to take me to doctor's appointments. It took me out of school. All I could see were the negative things about disability and I couldn't get past that.

Narrator: Jean found independence when she taught herself to ride a bike. This was her favorite form of transportation until her freshmen year of high school when, at the age of fifteen, she fell off her bike and dislocated her hip. For the next year and a half, Driscoll endured five surgeries as doctors rebuilt her hip. She spent most of the time in a body cast confined to a hospital bed. After the cast was removed she sat up in bed and dislocated her hip again. Doctors said that the joint was too weak for her to walk with braces. She would have to use a wheelchair. When she finally got back to Milwaukee's Custer High School, a classmate who also had spina bifida invited her to a wheelchair soccer practice. Jean refused.

Jean Driscoll: I didn't want to have anything to do with them because I was still dealing with my disability. I had only been using a chair for a year, and well, less than a year and I was not comfortable with it. And I didn't know how to make other people comfortable with it either. And I didn't want to go hang out with those wheelchair people. I didn't want people to think the only friends I could get were people in wheelchairs and the only boyfriends I could get were people in wheelchairs and I certainly didn't want to go to this hokey wheelchair soccer practice. But after a whole year of bugging me, finally in May of 1983, I decided to go with this guy and I knew I wasn't going to like it and I knew I wasn't going to return. But at least I was going to go and get this guy off my back. And when I went, I was completely surprised at how competitive it was. And I was hooked instantaneously.

Narrator: From then on, Jean couldn't get enough of competition. She played soccer, ice hockey, tennis and basketball. She enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to study nursing. But she was more interested in sports than schoolwork and she flunked out after her freshman year. A year later, Jean re-enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This time she achieved new success in her academics and in basketball. She caught the attention of Brad Hedrick who was then the coach of the Illinois wheelchair basketball team. He shared his exciting find with coach Marty Morse.

Marty Morse: He came back and he said, "You're not going to believe what they have up there. There's a very gifted young athlete who I really want to recruit for basketball." And I hear that all the time, so I was, "Well, fine. That's great. If she wants to be the best racer, she'll get in touch with us."