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March 01, 2006
A Life of Peaks and Valleys, and of Hope
Until he was shot, Green had escaped the violence that plagued his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He was 15 and a promising high school quarterback. After the shooting, his left leg had to be amputated and he was in a coma.
But Grace Green vowed that her son was not finished.
"I'm not going to let my son be a forgotten one," she told reporters in September 1992. "They say things happen for a purpose. As good as he was in football, he'll be even better in something else."
Sure enough, Ralph Green walked into the Olympic Village here one day last week, leaning on metal crutches, his smile a bright spot on a cold and rainy afternoon. Wearing his United States Paralympic Team jacket, he looked around and marveled at his surroundings.
"The Olympics is something that you see on TV," Green said. "You see the athletes that you see on TV, and they're eating lunch."
Soon, Green will move into his own Olympic Village room, in nearby Sestriere, for the Paralympics, which begin March 10 and will be contested in the same places as the Winter Games. Green, now 28, will compete in all four Alpine skiing disciplines.
Posted by Michelle at March 1, 2006 05:28 PM