LYNN MAGAZINE

December, 1986

Brian Hubbard talks about limitations, but he doesn’t see them the way most people do. "To give something up means to gain something new," he says. "We are all whole people with different limits."

And Brian Hubbard is living proof.

His vision is seriously impaired by retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative eye disease that has left him a "tunnel" of just two degrees of vision (out of the normal 180) [note: this was the case in 1985; he has been totally blind since 1989] and a related profound hearing loss.

Years ago, when he played varsity hockey at Lynn English High, his limited vision (20 degrees) often caused him to lose sight of the puck. He was also unable to see players charge him from the side, and frequently was hit by sticks.

Too many such hits resulted in a minor neurological problem which, in turn, caused a seizure. Hubbard was treated at Massachusetts General Hospital, where the retinitis pigmentosa was diagnosed positively. He gave up hockey.

He wouldn’t give up skiing, though. Eventually, after many frustrations and a good deal of self-denial, he changed some of his methods. He took to using a "blind skier" bib and an able-bodied skier as a guide on downhill runs. Today he skis with complete self-assurance and a great deal of joy.

He also has a very good shot at skiing in the ’88 Winter Olympics at Calgary as a member of the International Demonstration Team for Alpine Skiing.

Hubbard is already a member of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, a goal he achieved in 1985 by winning the downhill event sponsored by the United States Association of Blind Athletes in Duluth, MN. He won by an astounding fourteen seconds. "I was two seconds behind the pacesetter, and the pacesetter was a professional non-disabled racer."

The Duluth win capped the highlights of his brief career as a visually impaired competitive skier. Since 1982, this Lynn native has won twelve gold medals, three on the national level; and later season was a national pacesetter in the visually impaired category of the NASTAR racing program.

The wins, the awards and the goals don’t exist for their own sake or even for Brian Hubbard’s sake. Basically they are proof of human wholeness.

The purpose of the Olympic demonstration team, Hubbard says, "is to make a major impact on breaking down the barriers, the stereotypes of the physically-disabled population. Obviously, athletics at that level has a wide acceptance, and to incorporate a physically-disabled population into participating in the Olympic events, I think, would make tremendous strides." (The goal is to introduce fully competitive events for disabled athletes at the 1992 Olympic Games.)

Being selected to the 1988 demonstration team "would give me the highest visibility in the kind of advocacy I want to do," Hubbard says. "A lot of my skiing is not just for the purpose of skiing and winning medals and the enjoyment of competition. It’s to place myself in a position where I can make contacts in the business community, the public health community and to develop and improve existing services."

Hubbard, a licensed social worker with a private practice in Newport, RI, has a special interest in mental health services available to the disabled. Most of his clients are non-disabled and deal with such general mental health issues as depression, anxiety, conduct disorders and identity issues.

Showing people his skiing ability also allows Hubbard to demonstrate that "To give something up means to gain something new."

"Skiing helped me to acquire that notion because I had to work so hard to re-learn a new, adaptive way of skiing, overcoming no only the physical but emotional parts as well, what it was going to feel like to wear that bib and to cut in line. Skiing gave me a renewed sense of freedom and independence, and also respect for what I did, based on what I can do."

"It gives me the opportunity to show that I have acquired other resources in order to be able to function as a whole person. When people see this, it will show them that these skills can be useful to the larger society."

The resources Hubbard describes include "interpolation - because I only see pieces of thins, kinesthetic skills, perceptive and intuitive skills, skills I have come to trust and believe in."

He believes in the importance of support by family, friends and neighbors who offer help in overcoming a crisis or reaching a goal.

"It was really difficult for me to have to quit hockey. The kind of support I got was very significant. All of us (from his high school varsity hockey team) are still very close friends. Ever Saturday after Thanksgiving we have reunions." Last year the reunion was a fund-raising dance to help defray the expenses of Hubbard’s skiing. World-class skiing takes a great deal of time and money. The moral and financial support provided by fund raising is invaluable.

Brian has a wife, Meredith, and a 15- year old daughter, Brenda. He also has a growing professional practice. "I’m in the process of doing what most 40-year-old Americans want to do- make a better life for myself and my family while the other part of me really wants to ski," Hubbard says. "The biggest facilitator for bridging this gap has been the community support that I’ve gotten from Lynn. It’s been phenomenal."

"Lynn will always be home in my heart. I’ve talked to many different people from different areas and I’ve never come across people who had the kind of community tightness that we have around here. Not just friends," he added, "but businesses spearheaded by the Lynn City Council contributed so much help."

In February, 1986, City Council members pledged $100 each and sent letters to some 700 Lynn residents asking them to help raise the $50,000 that Hubbard will need for the four-year period 1985-88, leading to the Calgary Olympics.

That $50,000 represents transportation, lodging and fees for training two skiers: Hubbard and an able-bodied guide. Two weeks at Winter Park, CO where Hubbard says the best coaching can be found, costs $1,500 to $2,00. Equipment is not a major cost; he has received contributions from several manufacturers of skis, bindings, boots, goggles, and skiwear.

But the letter writing, dances and other fund-raising efforts go on. Individuals, businesses and community groups in Lynn, Newport and elsewhere continue to give and if they give enough, the kid who grew up close to the Lynn Woods might be skiing in the ’88 Olympics.

How did a kid from Lynn learn to ski? Hubbard has been skiing since he was six years old. That was when he found an old pair of wooden skis in the back of his family’s Woodland Avenue home, put them on and headed for snow-covered Happy Valley Golf Course (now Gannon Municipal).

"I couldn’t afford the 50 cents to get on the tow," he recalls, "so I asked the operator if I could just try it once, and if I liked it I would buy a tow ticket. I skied down, without knowing how to turn my skis. I couldn’t even turn to a stop. I had to wait till I slowed down to a complete stop. From that day on, I was exhilarated by skiing."

He has skied all of New England as well as California, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Switzerland and New Zealand.

On a 1976 trip to Switzerland, "I skied very well," but had several mishaps caused by limited vision. Once he went off a traverse and landed twenty feet below.

By the early 1980’s Hubbard was thinking of giving up skiing, but a former girlfriend changed his mind. She had read an article about the New England Handicapped Sportsmen’s Association ski program and a skier name Paul DiBello, who had lost both legs below the knee in a mountain-climbing accident.

"She passed the information on to her mother, her mother passed it on to my mother, and my mother passed it on to me," Hubbard recalls. He tracked DiBello down and talked with him on the phone. They soon met and skied together at Mt. Sunapee. That was the first time Hubbard wore a "blind skier" bib. DiBello encouraged him to enter a regional race the next week. Hubbard with the additional handicaps of outdated equipment and no training-won.

Later came the national competitions, the win at Duluth and the selection to the U.S. Disabled Ski Team.

He was the first person with impaired vision to helicopter-sk —using a helicopter to reach mountain sites inaccessible by conventional lifts.

"That was big news in New Zealand."

It will be bigger news around the North Shore, however, if Hubbard is named to the demonstration team for the Calgary Olympics. And it will be another example of why limitations needn’t be limitations rather, new ways to tap the potentials of human wholeness.

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