Ironmanlife: Let's Help Jimmy Mac and more news

Kevin Mackinnon learns about the Friends of Jimmy Mac Supplement Needs Trust

"What would Jim MacLaren do?" read the T-shirt. One of MacLaren's friends saw the shirt at a basketball game in Pennsylvania. Who knows if the girl wearing that shirt truly knew how inspiring those words really are. Now, though, it's time for all of us to ask the same question, because it's time for us to step up and help a man who changed the world of Ironman. Heck, who am I trying to kid. This guy changed the world.

In 1985 MacLaren was on his motorcycle, heading home from a late-night rehearsal, when he was hit by a 40,000 pound New York City bus. He was declared dead on arrival when he arrived at the hospital, but whoever made that call obviously had no idea how much strength and determination was contained in the wrecked body in front of them. They operated on MacLaren for 18 hours. He was in a coma for eight days. He lost his left leg below the knee.

Fast forward a few years. Bob Babbitt’s up on the podium at the Ford Ironman World Championship, recounting some fun stories from the day. He tells us all about Jim MacLaren running by a couple of competitors during the marathon. “Handicapped, my ass,” they said as they watched the guy with one leg run by them like they were parked. In 1989 MacClaren went 12:13:50. Three years later he went 10:42:50. Routinely the former Yale football and lacrosse player routinely beat 80 percent of the field in Kona or at the New York City Marathon.

Then, during a race in 1993, MacLaren was flying through the bike course when a marshall, who had misjudged his speed, directed a van out onto the course in front of him. The collision sent him flying into a signpost. He broke his neck at the C5 vertebrae. He was paralyzed.

How do you pick yourself up again? You’ve been a football star and you lose half of your leg. You become a media sensation as a disabled athlete and you lose your ability to move.

What would Jim MacLaren do? He overcame the odds and regained some motor function in his limbs. It was a desire to help him that inspired his many friends to create the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF). It was his story, along with support from the CAF, that inspired a young man named Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah to ride his bike across Ghana in order to change the mindset of an entire country. (That story is told in the incredible movie Emmanuel’s Gift – if you haven’t seen it, you need to.)

Along the way MacLaren was inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame. He was given the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2005 Espy awards presentation. He went back to school. He created the “Choose Living Foundation.”

Now we need to help Jim MacLaren. Thanks to his ongoing health problems, MacLaren’s “health has faltered and he has little in the way of financial resources,” according to one of his former teammates at Yale, Simon Walsh.

“In response, a number of his Yale football and lacrosse buddies formed the Jimmy Mac Supplement Needs Trust,” Walsh continued in an e-mail earlier this week. “We are using the trust to raise money so we can restore some of the basics to Jim’s life. Many of Jim’s health problems are linked to the fact he is bed-ridden, gets no physical therapy and, for most of the day, lays on his back in a room not much bigger than the bed itself. His wheelchair is broken, and he is limited to daily sponge baths. We need to help restore Jim’s fighting spirit as well as his health.”

An anonymous donor has already agreed to pick up the tab for MacLaren’s physiotherapy. The Jimmy Mac Supplement Needs Trust, http://www.friendsofjimmymac.com/ is helping to raise more money that will hopefully allow MacLaren to get out of that room and do so much more.

“Most of us would have crumbled with the challenges that he’s had, but he’s overcome all of them,” Walsh says.

What would Jim MacLaren do? My guess is he’d figure out how he could help. I hope you will, too.

You can find out more about Jim MacLaren here

Click here to get to the Jimmy Mac Supplement Needs Trust.

Photos courtesy www.jimmaclaren.com

Vote for Rudy
Speaking of Espy awards, you still have one day to vote for Rudy Garcia-Tolson.

Go to www.espys.tv, under the categories, scroll down to Male Athletes with a Disability and click on the vote tab under Garcia-Tolson's name.

IronKids to be featured on CBS Evening News tomorrow
Tune in (or set your DVRs) to the CBS Evening News tomorrow, Saturday, July 10, at 6:30 p.m. EDT, for a segment about the growth of youth triathlon that is centered around the IronKids National Triathlon Series. The segment will feature footage from June’s IronKids Raleigh Triathlon, including interviews with Michelle Payette and participants/parents.

You can reach Kevin Mackinnon at kevin@ironman.comComments powered by Disqus.