Learning Leadership

Chapter 11Get Curious and Go Kick the Ball Around

We've been following the inspiring life of Don Bennett for more than 30 years. Our initial encounter with Don was after he'd become the first amputee to ascend Mt. Rainier—that's 14,411 feet on one leg and two poles. We interviewed him about his leadership of the team that made that climb.¹ More recently, Don's been talking about his current passion, the Amputee Soccer League. He's working very hard to qualify amputee soccer for the Paralympic Games, and he's almost there. What's really fascinating is how it all got started.

After completing his historic climb, Don told us he was in the best shape of his life. He wanted to continue to do something to stay in good physical condition, and he started thinking about what he could do. One day Don was outside watching his son, Tom, shoot baskets. Tom kept missing, and the ball kept bouncing around. Don couldn't bend over to pick it up, so he just kicked the basketball with his one good leg. He did that several times, and later that evening he had this flash of inspiration. “Wait a minute,” he remembers saying to himself. “We can ski on one leg. Why can't we play soccer with one leg?” He continued to explain:

All I had was the inspiration. I didn't know that much about soccer. I didn't know there were even two sizes of soccer balls. . . . So the next thing is to get out and start doing something. The doing part of it is picking up a phone, calling a few friends, and saying, “Why don't ...