In his tennis Hall of Fame prime, many considered Ivan Lendl little than a robotic metronome.
Little did they really know the real phenom from the Czech Republic. Lendl is a constant jokester and story teller as he demonstrated again Monday at the 16th annual Hospital for Special Care Ivan Lendl Golf Classic at Wethersfield Country Club. The event has raised nearly $2 million for the care center in New Britain, whose motto is "We Build Lives" and includes an adaptive sports camp that will be held this year at St. Joseph's College in West Hartford on Aug. 8-12.
Lendl got involved with the fundraiser after meeting Jonathan Slifka of West Hartford, whose mother Janeace started the tournament after her son, who has spinal bifida, had been a March of Dimes poster child for the Hartford Whalers in the mid-1980s and then with Lendl in 1988.
After Slifka and his mother learned there were no wheelchair sports camps in the Northeast, Lendl lended a large helping hand. The first camp started in 1991, and then Lendl helped with a tennis fundraiser. After persistent back problems forced Lendl to retire in 1994 after winning 144 career titles, including eight Grand Slam events, the tournament became a golf fundraiser.
"I hooked Jonathan's parents up with people who showed him how to play tennis in a wheelchair," Lendl said. "They came up with the idea of raising money and having the camp in the summer."
"Through Lendl's help and fundraisers such as Monday's tournament, my mother was able to pretty much single-handed start a wheelchair sports camp," Slifka said. "She ran it on her own for about five years, and then she turned it over to the Hospital for Special Care, and they've been running it ever since."
The hospital and camp have helped thousands of individuals, including 20-year-old Kristin Michelle Duquette of East Hartford, a sophomore at Trinity College in Hartford majoring in human rights. Duquette, who has muscular dystrophy, has been involved with the Hospital for Special Care's Adaptive Sports Program for four years as a swimmer. She is ranked as one of the top two swimmers in the United States and has represented the country in national and international events.
Duquette is an American and junior national record holder and has completed a Half Ironman open ocean (1.2 miles) swim. In 2009, she competed in her first international event at the Young Parapans in Bogota, Columbia, and a year later, she was captain of the U.S. Paralympic Team for the Greek Open, winning one gold and three silver medals. Last month, she was one of three swimmers and one coach from the Hospital for Special Care selected to participate in the National Paralympic Swim Competition in Minneapolis, Minn.
Duquette's ultimate goal is to compete in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, England, and it would be hard to bet against her after the inspirational speech she delivered at the tournament dinner Monday night.
"I'm so thankful for the Hospital for Special Care enabling me to grow into the role model that I wanted to be," Duquette told about 200 people, including a record 150 that played in the tournament. "It instills hope for the future."
Duquette, a self-professed challenged athlete and motivational speaker, has a publication entitled "Kourage Makes a Difference," a takeoff on her initials. Her website is www.kristinduqette.com, and she can be contacted at 860-722-4577, kmduq369@aol.com or Kouragemakesdif@aol.com. If you want some inspirational words, I recommend Kristin.
One of the newest beneficiaries of the Hospital for Special Care is Newington's Joe "Gypsy" Grillo, 60, a caddie on the PGA Tour for 29 years and the Champions Tour for the last six. Grillo's best known employers have been Curtis Strange, Jay Haas, Steve Elkington and Jim Simons, who lost a tournament-record, six-hole playoff to Howard Twitty in the 1980 Greater Hartford Open at Wethersfield CC.
Grillo, who also was the president and cook for the Professional Tour Caddies Association, recently was diagnosed with a pulmonary problem that was exacerbated by asthma and smoking cigarettes. After three weeks at the Hospital for Special Care, Grillo has started eight weeks of outpatient rehabilitation while in a wheelchair.
"They've helped me so much overcoming something I knew nothing about," Grillo said. "I was completely panicking because I couldn't breathe. I'd actually go into a panic mode where I was gagging for air. I didn't know how to make care of myself, but with all the special training, you can live with lung disease.
"I'll never be able to run the marathon again, but I can definitely live a good life learning how to breathe and exercise and slowing myself down because I've always been such a go-go-go guy. I have clogged ears and ear infection that has made me very dizzy, so a lot of things collided and caught up with me. But they've taught me to overcome a lot of things."
When not helping raise money for charity, Lendl practices and plays golf, plays about 20 tennis exhibitions a year, helps run his academy in Florida or follows the exploits of three golfing daughters. Marika and Isabelle play at the University of Florida, and Danielle, affectionately known as Crash, is finishing high school and will be attending Alabama in the fall.
Marika had shoulder surgery and is out until October, but Isabelle finished 11th in a regional for the NCAA Women's Golf Championship last week and will competing with her Gators teammates May 18-21 at the Traditions Club in College Station, Texas. Danielle had ankle surgery and will be sidelined several months but plans to play in the Connecticut State Women's Amateur Golf Championship at Timberlin GC in Berlin on Aug. 15-17.
Lendl, 51, who has a plus-2 handicap, will play in the U.S. Open local qualifying Tuesday at Newport (R.I.) Country Club and will also try to qualify for the Connecticut Open and play in senior events throughout New England. For the last three years, he has run the Ivan Lendl Champions Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and now Vera Beach, and he'll soon be starting a tennis academy in Hilton Head, S.C.
It can be tell like the rise from he ash. It will be an inspiration to all others who become lazy or absentminded when a problem come.