Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 13, 2007|Volume 35, Number 25

Now a quadriplegic, Jim MacLaren, shown here talking with a member of his audience, still holds a world record as the fastest one-legged man. During his campus visit, the Yale College and School of Drama graduate was awarded the Kiphuth Medal.

Alumnus describes how life's
challenges have also been a 'gift'

Almost 19 years to the day that Jim MacLaren broke the world record for an amputee in the Boston Marathon while he was a Yale drama student, the alumnus returned to campus to deliver the Athletic Department's 2007 Kiphuth Fellowship Lecture, during which he moved his audience to three standing ovations.

The first came after MacLaren -- a 1985 Yale College graduate who earned his M.F.A. in 1989 at the School of Drama -- showed a poignant video that summarized his life story, describing his undergraduate days as a member of the Yale football and lacrosse teams; an accident in New York City shortly after he graduated that resulted in the partial loss of one his legs; his ability to turn that loss into gain as he began breaking world records as a triathlete; and a second accident, eight years after the first, that left MacLaren a quadriplegic.

The film went on to illustrate how MacLaren's spirit soared once again beyond his physical limitations, making him an inspiration for and support to other challenged athletes all over the world, along the way earning him numerous awards for his grit, determination and compassion. These include the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, which was presented at the 2005 ESPY Awards ceremony.

MacLaren titled his April 4 Kiphuth Lecture "Choose Life." His talk in the Law School's Levinson Auditorium was as much a motivational entreaty to his audience as it was an emotional re-telling of the devastating accidents that almost claimed the Yale alumnus' life, as well as the choices he had to make to re-engage in living as he recovered from them.

"I don't want to make this all about me," MacLaren told his audience at the start of his talk. "I want to spend most of the time talking about you." He said that his hope -- whether talking to audiences like the Branford High School students he addressed a day earlier or to the one at Yale -- was that people would leave the lecture not saying "'Wow, Jim MacLaren, what an amazing guy,' but to look at yourself and say 'So am I.'"

MacLaren recounted how he was pronounced dead when he arrived at a New York City hospital after getting hit by a 40,000-pound city bus after leaving a theater rehearsal on his motorcycle. A theater studies major at Yale, he was training at Circle in the Square Theatre School when the accident occurred.

He spent seven days in a coma, waking up to discover that his leg had been amputated below the knee. Once a 300-pound defensive lineman for the Yale Bulldogs, the
6-foot, 5-inch MacLaren later began swimming, cycling and running while working toward his master's degree at the drama school, and came to the attention of the sports world when he ran the 1988 Boston Marathon in 3 hours and 27 minutes -- the fastest time in the world run by an amputee in a marathon.

After earning his M.F.A., MacLaren began an acting career that included a role in the soap opera "Another World" and continued competing in -- and setting records in -- some of the world's most grueling athletic races, including the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii.

In 1993, when he was two miles into the bike leg of a triathlon in Mission Viejo, California, MacLaren was struck down yet again, this time by a van that had been directed to cross the street by a traffic marshal who had misjudged MacLaren's speed on the closed course. The triathlete was flung off of his bike and hurled into a signpost. Doctors told him that the break at the C5 vertebra would prevent him from ever feeling anything from the chest down.

When a friend from Yale came to visit him in the hospital, MacLaren told his audience, he wasn't sure he had the will -- physically or emotionally -- to go through yet another arduous recovery.

"It took two years of self study, going deep, and then deeper again," MacLaren said of his effort to confront his newest challenge.

There were some very dark times, including a period when he went to Hawaii, telling friends and family he needed some solitude to write his memoir. In reality, he was feeding an addiction to cocaine, which he began using to kill the intense pain he experienced daily.

There came a moment, however, MacLaren said, when he realized that he wasn't likely to die doing what he was but would only become unhealthy and destitute. His other option, he realized, was to "embrace life."

For a man whose many accomplishments were so tied to training, pushing and using his body, MacLaren's recognition that he was more than his physical condition was a paramount step in that choice, he said.

"I am not my body, I am a man. I'm alive as anybody who's jamming a basketball or scoring a touchdown or hugging a child," MacLaren said in the video he showed his audience. "Being alive is being alive. It's a good thing."

Now described by doctors as a "medical miracle," MacLaren's determination, combined with his intensive physical therapy, helped him to reclaim some motor function in his limbs, including his legs. "I could walk out of here with any one of you with some help," he told his audience.

Since winning the Arthur Ashe Courage Award and a subsequent appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," MacLaren's work as a motivational consultant, mentor and life coach has taken off, he said. In 2005 he started the Choose Living Foundation, which supports his philanthropic work helping people in need. It helps fund a variety of organizations, including the California-based Challenged Athletes Foundation, which was initially launched by MacLaren's friends to purchase a hand-operated car for the Yale alumnus and now supports athletes with disabilities all over the world. MacLaren, who lives in San Diego, California, is currently working toward a Ph.D. in mythology and depth psychology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute.

MacLaren has referred to his accidents as a "gift" because of the way they have allowed him to undertake a journey of self-discovery. His experience, he said, taught him two important things. One is that "we never know what our lives are going to look like" and the second is that "as long as we accept what happens and move forward, we are always going to be okay."

When people ask him why he thinks he had to suffer two accidents, MacLaren half-jokingly responded, "Maybe I needed to sit down." But, more seriously, he said, those events have made him form deeper human connections.

"Ten years ago, I heard people through my ears," he said. "But now I hear through my heart."

He passed on some of what he learned through his misfortunes to his audience, telling its members that they must fight the human temptation to negate themselves.

"Tomorrow, look in a mirror ... and say [to yourself], 'You know what? I'm pretty amazing, too,'" MacLaren urged.

The Yale alumnus acknowledged that everyone experiences their own pain and life challenges and that complaining about misfortunes is part of being human.

"Life isn't fair," he told the crowd. Pointing to himself in his motorized wheelchair, he asked, "Is this fair? Absolutely not. Each of us in this room is in his or her own wheelchair."

Although he deals with constant pain as a result of his injuries, MacLaren says that his mission is to "utilize all my abilities to spread love and compassion throughout the universe" through his philanthropic work.

"Where we really connect as human beings is through our wounds, our fears," he told his audience.

The audience members rose to their feet at the conclusion of MacLaren's talk and then again after the question-and-answer session.

Thomas Beckett, the University's athletic director, presented the alumnus the Robert J.H. Kiphuth Medal, given in memory of Yale's legendary swimming coach and former athletic director. Among those applauding MacLaren was his Yale College classmate and fellow football player Jon Litner, president of SportsNet New York, who introduced his friend as his long-time "hero."

-- By Susan Gonzalez

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

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Charlie Rose of PBS to present Fryer Lecture

Study: Early estrogen therapy may reduce cardiovascular risks

In Focus: Women Faculty Forum

Exhibit celebrates centennial of Yale benefactor Paul Mellon

Three congregations to demonstrate ancient tradition of line-singing

Geologist Jun Korenaga is honored for his research on the Earth's mantle

Alumnus describes how life's challenges have also been a 'gift'

Vivian Perlis honored as chronicler of American music

Three award-winning alumni writers will read from their works

Yale Opera to stage classic operetta in a new style

Homage to director Rossellini will highlight program on Italian cinema

'Biodiversity and global change' are focus of Peabody event

Traditional calligraphy by Chinese student featured in benefit exhibition

Kristin Savard wins this year's Hockey Humanitarian Award

Campus Notes