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Every Child Deserves A Champion
Including the Child Within You!

Foreword

As I sat there in the Drewry Room of the College of Journalism, at the University of Georgia, I clung to every word Bob Danzig said as if her were only speaking to me and not the other fifty or so people in the room. Captivating. That is the only word I can think of to describe him that day. This man was telling my story—only, it was his own. He had come from the same less-than-perfect background that I had. Yet, there he was, the vice president of a world-renowned publishing company telling me that I could do the same thing. “You are talented,” he said. Me? Talented? Sure, I know how to survive and how to work hard to get everything I want, but I never considered that talent. Bob made it sound believable, and I was sold. The more I listened to him, the more I wanted to hear. I wanted him to keep telling me how far in my life I could go. There was a reason he was so enthralling, but I did not realize it until later. Immediately after his speech, I went up to him and he grabbed me—I mean he physically put his arm around me and pulled me close to him. And it wasn’t just with me; he was like that with everyone who came up to talk to him. Normally I would have felt threatened, but with him, I was totally comfortable, as if I’d known him for a long time.

“What do you want your life to be?” he asked. Stunned, I stammered, “I want to be a journalist.” At the time I thought I could have come up with something better to say. Without missing a beat, Bob said, “You can do it, you will do it, because you are who you are and you are wonderful.” That just made my day. I walked away from that room floating on his words and repeating them over and over in my head. Graduation was fast approaching and I was feeling less than confident about my chances of getting a job right out of college. Bob’s words took away my worries.

I know people who think the power of positive affirmation is imaginary, but I can argue that point all day. Thinking positively has taken me a long way and I thank Bob for becoming not only a friend that day, but a “thread in my personal tapestry,” as he is fond of saying.

Soon after meeting Bob, I accepted a summer magazine internship in New York. I decided to take a chance and to write to Bob, explaining who I was, how he had spiritual enlightened me, and that I’d like a chance to “do lunch” when I arrived in Manhattan. Honestly, I never expected him to respond. After all, being a high-powered executive with a budding motivational speaking career doesn’t leave much time for mentoring, I thought. But to my delight, he called me and said he would love to meet with me. Even more surprising, the day after I arrived in New York, the internship coordinator handed me a message from him. He had tracked me down before I had had a chance to get in touch with him! Amazing.

A few weeks later, we met for lunch and he beamed when he saw me. I didn’t think he would remember me, but he grabbed me again and hugged me like we were old friends. Over lunch, I did most of the talking. He wanted to know everything about me—my childhood, why I chose University of Georgia, what I wanted out of my summer in New York, and so on.

Bob adopted me that summer. He said he wanted to be my mentor and that he was going to make sure I had the best time I could in the city. He made good on his promise and I saw the theater, the ballet, and many other things I’d never had the opportunity to experience. Having grown up on the streets of New Jersey, these kinds of luxuries offered a whole new world to me.

I grew up the product of a broken home. My father left when I was four years old. My mother fled her duties soon after and my brother and I became my grandmother’s responsibility. When my grandmother was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1989, we siblings became wards of the state of New Jersey. My brother and I were separated and moved from one foster home to the next. A wonderful family who told me I could be anything I wanted, despite my humble beginnings, eventually adopted me. I learned that hard work and focus were all I needed to succeed. I could have become another foster home statistic, but I didn’t want that to be my future. I finished college and now have a job at a newspaper doing exactly what I want to do with my career. And, champions in my life like Bob ensured that I stay on a path to a lifetime of success.

—Kelli Parker

Introduction

Every child deserves a champion. As a child growing up in the foster care system, this concept never crossed my mind. Now, however, the value of this statement guides my every step. As an adult reflecting upon his childhood, I am extremely thankful that I have had the good fortune to have had champions in my life—individuals who not only acted as springboards to opportunity, but as my greatest supporters. I was a diamond in the rough to them—a child needing someone who could see the worth in his potential and someone who had the patience to help a child smooth his jagged edges and shine.

I like to believe that I would have been as fortunate and achieved all I have today—a wonderful wife, five marvelous children, and three grandchildren, as well as over forty years with the Hearst Corporation as vice president of the company and CEO of the Hearst Newspaper Group—on my own, but when it comes down to it, it was the applause of a few key individuals that made the difference. Every Child Deserves a Champion: Including the Child Within You! was born form this realization and took root in the following story, which two hiking friends shared from their lives:

Shelley and Scott were one of the couples on a guided hike I took in the mountains of Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico. The eighteen of us who had signed on for the week of hiking were chatting amiably on the first day, describing our families, our work, our passions, and our hobbies. Heads down, always on alert for unfriendly tree roots or stones ready to impede the trail, the easy, relaxed conversation allowed us to migrate from hikers to pals—a nice journey.

Inspired by the majesty of New Mexico’s abundant sunrises, sunsets, and pure earthy beauty, our group covered miles of trails through the beautiful state, as well as through our personal lives during a week when quiet was an everyday companion.

Mid-day became our time to sit, lunch, stretch, and grow in knowledge of each other as eye-to-eye conversation was so much more compelling than the eye-to-back chats limited by our single-file hiking patterns.

“We’ve been blessed with our three treasured daughters and our marvelous son, Danny,” said Scott as he described his children. His wife, Shelley, talked enthusiastically about each daughter and the unusual fact that all were married and lived within one block of each other—“Our own little compound,” she asserted. “And,” Shelley said, “the family has the further good news of the youngest child, Danny, living at home with us.” Danny was a software engineer who had recently earned his master’s degree in computer science. Their family profile resonated with me since my wife and I also have three daughters. And, the youngest of our two sons, Matt, was also a recent college graduate who was living home with us until his horizon of work defined where he needed to relocate to.

On the final day of our hiking trip, Shelley, a university professor, shared a story over our mid-day lunch about the multi-university study team she was part of, which was examining the phenomenon of so many male children of famous athletes being born with autism and other serious emotional and physical challenges. She commented that the task force was attempting to identify common characteristics that these athletes might share. One early observation she said, was the enormous chasm between the public adoration these athletes had in their lives, and the fact that they returned home to a challenged child who was emotionally unaffected by their fame. The gap these athletes travel between devoted fans and their private anguish of the challenged child is an extraordinarily wide one.

As Shelley talked about the very real psychological difficulties such athletes face, her husband, Scott, leaned across the picnic table and said that his wife had earned the right to understand that difficulty, because they had personal experience in dealing with a challenged child. “You see,” he explained, “our Danny was born with a mild cerebral palsy that left his right arm limp and unable to function. He also has a severe limp in his right leg. One day, when Danny was four years old, he was in the neighborhood with all his young friends playing made-up games. All the children had learned to tie their shoelaces about that time and a game of choice that day was to form a circle and compete to see who could tie their shoe laces the fastest. All the children were in that circle, including Danny, who, because he had no use of his right hand, could not tie his shoelaces at all.”

Scott told us that when Danny came limping home with a mournful sob, so conscious of his failed arm and hand, he looked down at Danny and promised himself that his son was going to live a life seeing possibilities rather than limitations. As Scott listened in anguish to Danny’s sobs, and as he hugged Danny tightly, he committed himself to being an instrument to encourage his son to see all the possibilities. With the impetus of that thought, Scott decided to teach himself to tie his own shoelaces, using only his left hand. It took him two months to master the technique. Scott then began teaching Danny, who, accustomed to using only his left hand with the dexterity such use provides, became swift at tying his shoelaces with his single left hand in just a week.

Armed with his new capability, Danny went out into the neighborhood where his friends were having another shoelace-tying contest. Danny came home beaming with a cheek-to-cheek smile because he had won the contest. He looked up at his proud father and said, “Daddy, you are my champion.”

As Scott shared this powerful story over our final hiking picnic lunch, he looked at me and said, “Every child deserves a champion.” I looked back to Scott and said, “That, my friend, is a book waiting to be shared.”

My intention in sharing this rich treasure of the stories that follow is to encourage you to have cause to reflect on those champions in your own life—yesterday and today—taking special time to consider the spiritual oasis following each chapter. Because the response to some of the stories appearing in my previous book, Angel Threads, has remained so strong, I have reprinted a few special ones here to emphasize the importance of champions in our lives. And, just as the yang is connected to the yin, my additional hope is that you will have cause to embrace every opportunity to be a champion for those you are privileged to influence. Regardless of age, each of us always has some of the child within us.

—Bob Danzig

Chapter One: Champions

What Is A Champion?

“The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts.
An immense difference.”
—Henry Miller

Superman or Captain Marvel. If someone had asked me what a champion is when I was a child, I probably would have answered by naming these two superheroes of the day—or, perhaps, someone along the lines of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, or Joe Louis. It would not have occurred to me to name one of the individuals in my life. As I mentioned in the Introduction, I spent my childhood growing up in the foster care system. During this time, I didn’t realize how the kindness of a few key people could parallel the life-saving feats superheroes regularly performed. However, as I grew older and began to reflect on the impact certain individuals have had on my life, I realized that instead of muscles of steel, the protected me with the strength of their kindness.
         Mae Morse, the social worker assigned to my movement from my fourth foster home to my fifth, opened my life to possibility when, at the end of our first meeting, she leaned in close to me and said, “Never forget—YOU ARE WORTHWHILE!” During that full year when she regularly came to check out my status, she reinforced the strength of my self-esteem by continually saying those three kind words at the conclusion of each of our meetings. By gifting me an extra measure of herself, she became the earliest champion in my life. Instead of wowing me with the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound or to throw no-hitters, she helped enhance my power of self-confidence. I am convinced that had it not been for the three magic words Mae Morse said to me at the end of each of our meetings, I would not have the privilege of living such a rewarding life. Even today, I can hear her quiet whisper trumpeting, “YOU ARE WORTHWHILE!”

Recognizing Champions—And Children

“It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the
Whole country isn’t in flames, that there are people in the
Country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.”
—Charles Kuralt

When I first began asking friends for their opinions about a book championing the rights of children, many thought it was a great idea, and threw out such names as Paul Newman and Audrey Hepburn, who are world-renowned for their work benefiting children. Few suggested that what they themselves were doing in their own lives might constitute the work of champions, or that the child my title alluded to was defined by anything other than one of a young age. But as I continued to share the original concept of my title and did more research, I found myself redefining “a child” as an attitude rather than one of young age. And, when I came across one of Bill Cosby’s insightful quotes—“It is popular today to say that we have to find the child within us. For me, this would be a short search.” —I knew that I was moving in the right direction, expanding Every Child Deserves a Champion to include adult children as well.
        When we grow older, I think many of us have a tendency to drop “the child within” off at daycare because we have so many “adult” responsibilities to take care of; the child simply gets in the way. A few years back, there was a college valedictorian whose graduation speech was televised on the evening news. While on stage, he cut off his long ponytail and proclaimed that on that day he was going undercover. He was going to wear his hair short and his face clean-shaven, and don suits to infiltrate the adult world. When I think about this valedictorian now, I wonder how successful he was—if he was able to maintain the balance between becoming an adult and remaining a child.
        As the survivor of a heart attack, I’ve found that it is very important to have a balance between the adult and the child side of myself—to remember to pick up that inner child and not to leave him at “daycare” for too long. Following my heart attack, the doctors told me that I had to take it easy. I could not return to work right away. Fortunately, while in the hospital I met Gene Wald, who had also suffered from a heart attack and who became my “recovery pal” when we were both released from the hospital. What Gene did for me then, I realize now, was to awaken my inner child. We made model airplanes, went on walks, and regained our strength together. It reminds me of the turnaround that the adult Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, made in the movie Hook. He had become so wrapped up in his work that he had forgotten about the childhood basics such as being spontaneous without being self-conscious, or courageously tackling a challenge because it was new, and because he didn’t know enough to be afraid.
        In one particular scene, Grandma Wendy asks Peter, “What is so terribly important about your terribly important business?” and Peter’s son answers, “Well you see, when a big company is in trouble, Dad sails in, and if there is any resistance, he blows them out of the water.” Grandma Wendy’s response is, “So, Peter, you’ve become a pirate.”
        As an adult, Peter encompassed everything he despised as a child. He had become so bogged down by the adult in him that he had even forgotten how to fly—how to feel completely free of adult constraints, while still dealing with the responsibilities the adult world placed on him. However, once he was given another chance to “be a child,” his life completely changed. By awakening his child within, he overcame the fears he developed as an adult and regained the confidence of his youth. And, he was able to do all of this because he had the support of people who believed in him. Gene Wald was instrumental in my heart attack recovery because he reintroduced simple childhood joys such as building model airplanes. Like Hook’s Peter Pan, I was reminded how “to fly” again.
        In our own way we each have the ability to champion children of all ages. We simply have to see within ourselves the ability to be champions and be open to the challenges. Blind school teacher Rich Ruffalo is one such person who discovered his potential tied to a greater purpose once he examined what was within him.

A Clear View

“Have you noticed that I have not been looking at you?” he asked. During my first meeting with Rich Ruffalo, he surprised me by asking me this question. I had first heard Rich’s name spoken by university professor Dr. Rob Gilbert. I had just addressed his graduate class in sports psychology when Dr. Gilbert told me that Rich Ruffalo had spoken to his class a month before, and that he believed Rich and I would enjoy knowing each other.
        After a few failed stabs at phone tag. I finally made contact with Rich and made a date to visit him. When I arrived at his home, I rang the doorbell with a sense of excitement. As the door opened, I extended my hand in greeting. Standing before me was this giant of a man, well over six-and-a-half-feet tall, who looked like part of the interior line of a pro-football team. Rather than shake my hand, he said, “Come here. I want to hug you!” He literally picked me up and I hung from his embrace, legs dangling like a Raggedy Andy doll.
        Once he set me down, Rich asked that I follow him to his porch where we would chat. He walked in front of me, settled into a chaise lounge, and suggested I sit in the lawn chair next to him. Just as I began more formally to introduce myself, his six-year-old daughter Sara came bouncing onto the porch. She settled into her father’s lap and asked whether they could sing their special song before she said “night-night.” Rich pulled her up close to his cheek and Sara turned her sweet face to me, the guest audience, and beamed her radiant smile. Rich’s baritone joined with her lovely soprano and they sang aloud, “We Have Come to Teach.” Four verses. In perfect harmony. Sara, wearing her pastel yellow Winnie-the-Pooh nightgown, and the contented look of a loved child, nestled right up to her daddy’s cheek. With the song concluded, Sara kissed us both and toddled off to sleep.
         “I am a teacher,” Rich said to me. He explained that he taught biology in a local high school, and had been honored by the Disney Corporation as the nationwide teacher of the year. The song, he said, was the theme music for the event, and Sara had loved it so much that it had become their personal tradition for their evening goodnights.
        Rich then leaned his face towards me and asked, “Have you noticed I have not been looking at you?” I replied that I did, but thought that I had not yet said anything to compel his interest.
        He drew a deep breath and told me that he had not looked at me because he could not see me. He was blind. His sight, he said, had left him four years after college. As his sight dimmed, he said, it was replaced with a deep bitterness. Why me? That became the question that would not leave his mind. With his teaching career threatened, only the participation in athletic events for the blind gave him any sense of relief and wholeness. He did continue to teach with the aid of a sighted proctor. Because he needed to raise the funds to pay for his travel to the athletic competitions, he contacted local organizations to sponsor him, and then would repay them by speaking about his experiences to their employees. Quite unintentionally, he found himself in demand as a speaker for a growing number of local groups. Audience members, moved by his comments, encouraged him to become a professional speaker, as did his caring wife Diane. Although he started quite tentatively, Rich soon found himself in high demand as a polished and highly-impactful professional speaker.
        The trigger event, he told me, was his realization that he had a gift to share. It occurred at a St. Louis track even when he felt a tug on his sleeve, accompanied by a woman’s voice telling him she was there with thirty-one children from the St. Louis School for the Blind. They had come, she said, “to touch you today.”
        Rich said he knelt down and each child rubbed his muscular arm, shoulder, and neck. When he stood to throw the javelin, he could hear the children cheering. Their voices gave him momentum, and that day he threw the javelin farther than he ever had before. More important than the gold medal he won, he said, was the vision he saw as the javelin left his hand; he was blind because others needed him to inspire them to choose to see the light of possibility rather than the grim dim of despair. Rich sensed that he could be a champion for the light even though he himself was anchored in visual darkness.