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WATERSKI MagazineThere are no clouds in Ron Williams' life. He's been through enough storms to be a beaten, dejected man. But day in and day out his outlook remains as bright as his clear blue eyes. Life keeps throwing shots at Williams, but to him they're nothing but glancing blows.
The worst of times should have been November 1988, when cancer took Williams' left leg nine days before his 15th birthday. He absorbed that hit and refused to let it ruin his life. Instead he took up tournament water skiing, a vocation that would earn him elite status not just among disabled skiers but at the collegiate and traditional three-event levels.
But an uncanny talent on skis pales in comparison to the attitude that is Ron Williams.
On spending much of his freshman and sophomore years of high school in Norcross, Georgia, undergoing grueling chemotherapy treatments, losing as much as 7 pounds with each one, he says: “Every other week I was in the hospital, but I had a good time. I had Nintendo and a remote-control car.”
On having his leg amputated: “The amputation was my easiest visit in the hospital. I didn't have to have chemo. I had it done and was able to leave.”
On waking up after surgery: “Your leg's casted. They have a foot already on there. I remember I sat up and looked and there were two feet sticking up, and I thought they hadn't done it yet. You're all drugged up. I asked my dad and mom if I had gone through it yet.”
Each statement he punctuates with a smile. Says his father, Gary Williams, “Ron doesn't realize he doesn't have but one leg. When he decided to get well from cancer, he decided then and there nothing was going to stop him [from doing] everything he wanted to do.”
Williams, now 23 and a student at Georgia College in Milledgeville, skied for fun before being diagnosed with cancer. He only took up tournament skiing at the suggestion of two disabled skiers, David Bethune and Gary Park, whom he met at Atlanta Prosthetics. They gave Williams his start in tournament skiing and his most popular nickname. During one of their first ski sessions, when Williams barely had enough strength to grip the handle, Bethune and Park told him, “You're just a tadpole. You can't do anything.” To this day a lot of people don't even know that Tadpole's real name is Ron.
His father has his own monikers for Ron. There's “Slick” for the time chemotherapy left him with a Michael Jordan haircut. But his name of choice is “Peg Leg.”
“That's to kinda get over the stigma,” Gary says.
The 6'1″ Tadpole is obviously over it. He holds world disabled records in slalom and tricks, and is the only leg amputee to ever jump over 100 feet. To get to this point, Williams, who also races mountain bikes against able-bodied competition, moved to Florida when he was 18 and became a polished skier under the tutelage of Russell Gay and Bill and Kyle Peterson.
He developed a slalom posture that gives no indication of a handicap. With the aid of lots of soap, he slips his prosthetic foot into a standard front binder, and skis the course in a perfect crouch. In tricks, he again skis with his prosthetic foot forward. His best pass features wake O's, wake 540s and a couple flips. He can also do some toe tricks – a toe-back, toe-front, toe-wake-back and toe-wake-front – strapping his good foot into the harness.
Jumping might have been the toughest event to learn, what with the primitive skis and unwaxed ramp on which he started. “I used to wear all these pads and just know I wasn't going to go over the ramp,” he remembers. “I was going to hit the ramp.” A few days at ski school fixed all that, and now he pops 100-foot jumps off a three-quarter cut.
“We were completely amazed he could do everything he could do,” says Kyle Peterson, who also roomed with Williams in college. “He pretty much did everything he accomplished on will.”
Williams is the only disabled skier ever to qualify for the Southern Regionals, Collegiate All Stars and Collegiate Nationals. He still skis in the Disabled Nationals each year and never forgets his role among disabled skiers, especially the children.
“He is the spokesperson for younger people in the sport of disabled water skiing,” says Rhonda Van Dyk, president of the Water Skiers with Disabilities Association. “He inspires them to put the disability behind them.”
That would seem tough for a skier who can't camouflage his prosthetic leg when he's wearing swim trunks. Whether Williams is at a ski tournament or a mall, people will ask about his leg. He responds according to their presentation, and his mood. The answer is short and snappy for boisterous gawkers. It's patient and thorough if the inquiry is sincere. Most of the questions come innocently from kids.
“A lot of little kids don't know what cancer is, so I'll say I had [the leg] cut off – it was sick or something,” Williams says.
Tough questions, inconveniences in getting around, these he can put up with. But there's one thing that can wreck Williams' steady mood: equipment. He goes through prosthetics almost as fast as an inboard goes through gas, but he's constantly working with Larry Rice of Atlanta Prosthetics and Bill Eason of Milledgeville Orthotics on new concepts. The foot he uses for slalom skiing breaks down when water gets in it, and he goes through one about every three weeks. Ron's dad estimates that Rice has given $100,000 worth of prosthetic legs to Williams.
“He pretty much surpassed what most amputees can do in the sports field,” says Rice. “He's by far the best water skier as an amputee that I've ever seen.”
But consistency is lacking in Williams' training. The feet break down. They ski one way today and totally differently tomorrow. He finds one he likes and all of a sudden, snap. Says Tadpole: “We've still got a long way to go.”
Williams has already traveled the longest road. He was an energy-charged teenager, into soccer and cycling, until the summer of 1988. What he first thought was a sprained ankle was slow to heal. It was diagnosed as a break, then a bone infection and, ultimately, cancer. He started chemotherapy immediately, and had lung surgery because the cancer had spread. Three months later his leg was amputated just below the knee. Another 18 months of chemo followed.
“It was devastating,” Gary Williams says. “You've got a kid who back in those days was into bike riding and all that stuff, all of sudden hurts his leg on a lake. The next thing you know he's in the hospital with cancer.”
His mother Louise's voice quivers, even after nearly nine years. “This is when kids think nothing can touch them, and here we find out he could die. He understood everything too clearly. He'd see kids who would be dead the next week. He loved babies, and a couple of the babies died. It was hard.”
Ron's parents, who have since divorced, were only part of his support system. He also had his older brother, Gary Jr., his nurses, and friends from his neighborhood who were with him when he was so weak he had to crawl to the bathroom. They helped pull his hair out when chemo was pushing it from his scalp. And they injected their own therapeutic humor into the situation.
“His buddies had a 'Goodbye, Leg' party in our house before it was amputated,” Gary says. “They drew a mark around Ron's leg and wrote 'Do Not Cut Above This Line.' The doctor said it was just an inch away from the actual amputation.” On the other leg they wrote, “Do Not Touch This Leg.”
After amputation, the process of walking starts with two crutches, then with one crutch, then a cane and then without aid. Williams, of course, skipped the crutch stage and rushed to the cane.
“I just wanted to walk
around by myself,” he says. “I have a little limp because of that. Then I had a temporary prosthesis on and I was playing catch football in the yard with some friends … and broke my femur.”
As much as he's learned from his illness and gained from water skiing, Ron has also given back. As a teenage cancer patient, he attended a camp for children with cancer – Camp Sunshine in Rutledge, Georgia. He's never stopped going, setting aside that week every summer. He's a counselor now and runs the water-ski program.
“I think I'm a good role model for the kids there,” he says. “They all know I've done well in skiing. I survived. When you're going through it, it's always nice to see someone who's been through it. It's an awesome place. You leave there really changed, with a new outlook on things.”
The same might be said after a few minutes with Tadpole. He's much larger than his nickname.
“Isn't he pretty?” Gary Williams says, his heart singing with pride. “The way water skiing has built him up, the broad shoulders. Needless to say, I'm a doting father.”
And Tadpole is a driven man. It's almost as if he considers losing his leg a blessing.
“It's opened a lot of doors for me,” he says. “Instead of going in one direction, losing my leg took me in another. I've had nothing but positive things from it. I couldn't ask for anything more right now and I wouldn't ask for my life to be any different.”
A Charlotte Observer sportswriter and tournament slalom skier, Marjo Rankin Bliss writes frequently for WaterSki.
