January 25, 2012 (Marblehead) — The success of a speech given by paralyzed former hockey star Travis Roy Tuesday at the Marblehead Veterans Middle School could be measured in sound — or, rather, the lack thereof.

The entire seventh-and-eighth-grade student body hung spellbound as Roy, alone on stage in his wheelchair, recounted his spinal injury and imparted some of the lessons he has learned in the 16 years since. Roy’s visit was sponsored by the Female Humane Society, the Marblehead schools’ Arts Council and the Veterans School Parents Council.

A brief video introduction set the stage for Roy’s remarks. The video showed Roy’s injury and recounted the shock Roy’s family experienced when Roy uncharacteristically lost his balance while moving in for a check and went head first into the boards just 11 seconds into his first shift for the defending national champion Boston University Terriers hockey team in 1995. Roy explained that he asked the team doctor to have his father come down to the ice. When his father at first didn’t appreciate the severity of the injury, Roy told him, “Dad, I’m in big trouble.” He quickly added, however, “But, Dad, I made it.”

Indeed, achieving one’s goals was a big part of Roy’s message to the students. He described how, as a youth, he would often attend sports camps where various speakers would stress the importance of goal setting. So one night in high school, the Maine native decided to put pen to paper and list out some things to strive for both in the short term — numbers of goals and assists for the rest of his high school career — and long term. Long range, Roy explained he listed three: play Division I college hockey, play in the NHL and play on the U.S. Olympic hockey team.

It brought a smile to his parents’ faces, he explained, when he showed them the list, but his father had one addendum for the list. He noted that, to get a college scholarship, his son would not only need to continue to excel on the ice but in the classroom.

“That sort of burst my bubble,” Roy said, explaining that he had a mild form of dyslexia and that, as a result, “academics didn’t come easy.” Nonetheless, he added maintaining a B average and scoring at least 1,000 on his SATs — something that would take five tries to achieve, he would later add with a laugh — to the list and tucked it away in a desk drawer. He explained he has since learned the importance of taking such a step.

“I don’t know any other way to stay motivated,” he told the students.

And while promising one’s self certain rewards — like a new video game or dinner out — for achieving one’s goals is OK, Roy said that attaining one’s goals has more to do with “two primary motivating factors.”

The first: “You’ve got to want to see how good you can be,” Roy explained. “I always wanted to see how fast I could skate, how accurately I could shoot a puck, how many goals I could check off.”

He urged the students, once they found a passion, to always be asking themselves, “What’s my potential? How far can I take it? How good can I be?”

The other, he said, is “having pride.” He noted that the dictionary definition of “pride” entails having “reasonable and justifiable self-respect.”

“You’ve got to believe in yourself to attain your goals,” he said.

He then painted a vivid picture of the day on which he was to attain one of his goals by taking the ice for the Terriers.

“When I woke up, I was like a kid on Christmas Day,” Roy said of the October morning.

He described walking into the locker room and seeing images of the greats who had played for BU before him, the roar of the crowd as the national championship banner was raised before the game, and the “tap on the back of my shoulder I had been waiting for my whole life” — Coach Jack Parker telling him to hit the ice.

Eleven seconds later, Roy’s life would be changed forever. Roy explained that he broke two bones — the fourth and fifth vertebrae — and damaged severely his spinal cord. But as scared and confused as he was about his injury, Roy explained that he felt something else: pride that he had crossed a goal off his list.

“I took great pride in that — and I still do,” Roy said.

Recovery

Roy explained that he spent four months in Boston Medical Center, two of them on a ventilator being unable to talk, limited to blinking once for “yes,” two for “no.” He explained how his condition improved after he was transferred to Atlanta’s Shepherd Center, where he highlighted the butterflies painted on the ceiling — in Boston, the tiles he was forced to stare at for hours on end were plain white — as emblematic of a greater sensitivity to the challenges he and others in the hospital were facing, which in turn fostered a positive attitude he has come to believe is essential to success.

For Roy in Atlanta, his successes included an unexpected experience scuba diving, something he initially thought might be impossible. He and four other quadriplegics had gone to check out the offering.

“I was envisioning the five of us sunk at the bottom of a pool,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is going to get ugly.’”

Nonetheless, 10 minutes later, Roy explained he had a wetsuit on, an oxygen tank strapped to his back and a regulator in his mouth.

Roy said he came to learn that “values make us who we are,” and in that sense, the paralyzed Travis Roy was no different from the able-bodied one. He spent the rest of his remarks trying to impart some of those values, which he listed as “love,” “pride” and “respect.”

Roy asked the students whether they had ever heard the cliché that respect is something that has to be earned. After they raised their hands, he explained that he had come to disagree with that statement.

“I believe when you meet somebody new, whether older or younger, rich or poor, black or white, with long hair or no hair… you should give them the utmost respect right from the start,” Roy said, at least until someone proved unworthy of that respect.

“There are a lot of problems in this world, in this country and in this community right here in this room,” he suggested, that could benefit from “a little more tolerance, a little more patience.”

You don’t have to agree with everyone, Roy told the students — “just take the time to hear the person out.”

He also encouraged them not to be bullies.

“Wouldn’t you rather be known as the kid who is nice, whom you can trust, who builds someone up?” Roy asked.

Discussing pride, he encouraged students to have the pride and courage to listen to the voice in the back of their heads to resist peer pressure. The voice, he said, “tells us when something feels right” but also when “this isn’t such a good idea.”

“If you listen to that voice, I believe no one in this room is going to die in a drunk-driving accident,” Roy said. “If you listen to that voice, I believe no one is going to have an unwanted pregnancy.”

To start his discussion of love, Roy shared an awkward moment from his youth: having told a girl that he had known for two hours and had just kissed for the first time that he loved her.

While that might not have been love, Roy said he has come to learn that there are many different types of love.

“There’s love for a sport, love for a dog, love for a friend, or a teacher or a coach,” he said.

And he said that letting people around us know that we love them should be a “daily occurrence,” perhaps by leaving a card on the kitchen table for one’s parents or even, if need be, by text message or e-mail.

Roy noted that when he gives his speeches, he is inevitably asked what the first thing he would do if he is one day able to get out of his wheelchair.

“That’s easy,” he said. “I would hug my mother. I would hug my dad, and my sister, and my friends who have been there and supported me.”

He added, “If you aren’t quite comfortable telling someone you love them, don’t be afraid to give them a hug. A little squeeze lets them know you appreciate and care about them.”

Roy closed his formal presentation by describing his return to BU to resume his education 10 months after his accident. He recalled coming into the same building where, the previous year, he had strode in boldly with his hockey bag slung over his shoulder. Despite the fact that empty seats were full and far between in the bustling cafeteria, Roy ended up eating alone.

“If I could encourage you do one thing to make a difference… for someone who is a little different, it would be to have the compassion to look that person in the eye, put a smile on your face and say hello,” he said. “That’s all I wanted — for somebody to see that I was still the same Travis Roy.”

Questions and answers

Roy then opened the floor to questions, and the first one was whether, had he known he would be injured, whether he still would have played that first game at BU.

“The simple answer is no,” Roy replied candidly, noting that one of his contemporaries on that team had gone on to win an Olympic gold medal, the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche and earned millions in the NHL.

“It would have been fun to live that life and seen how good I could have been,” he said.

He was quick to add, however, that perhaps his life has had more value, given the work the Travis Roy Foundation (travisroyfoundation.org) has done on behalf of people with spinal-cord injuries and to further research into a cure. He later added that some of the people he has met through the foundation — who have endured “much more difficult circumstances” — continue to inspire him, as do the people who initially raised a lot of money for him in the immediate aftermath of his injury.

“I want to live a life that makes them proud,” he said.

Roy said he still gets a momentary pit in his stomach watching professional hockey.

“But after a couple of minutes, I tuck that away,” he said. He would later tell a student that he thinks the Boston Bruins have as good a shot as any team of repeating as Stanley Cup champions, though he wondered aloud whether goalie Tim Thomas’ snub of President Barack Obama’s White House invitation might be a lingering distraction.

Another sign of the impact of Roy’s remarks occurred after the bell had rung ending the school day. While they were free to go home and play X-Box or hang out with their friends, several dozen instead made a beeline for the stage, where they thanked Roy for coming, asked questions and got autographs.

Roy playfully corrected a diminutive student who proclaimed to be a “big” hockey player before offering words of encouragement.

“I was always the smallest one out on the ice, too,” Roy said. Don’t worry about your size; focus on your skills, Roy told him.

Another student told Roy he would apply his lessons to attaining his goal of becoming a rapper. Roy encouraged him to keep up with his studies as a fallback.

Yet another assured him, “You really touched me — and I’m not just saying that because I’m standing in front of you.”

For Travis Roy, such moments provide the stats — in lives affected and smiles shared — by which his success is now measured.

Wicked Local Photo by Kirk R. Williamson.   View original article in Wicked Local Marblehead.