roller skate.” Then the teacher said she wouldn’t take Andrea because she was too young—only seven—and she should wait ’til she got better. Andrea just said, “That’s why I want lessons.” Pretty soon both Mom and Steve were taking turns driving her down to the rink for lessons on weekends and skating practice after school up to four times a week.
I should have mentioned that for many girls in Indiana, roller skating is about the same as the Indianapolis 500. See, you can do just about anything on roller skates that you can on ice skates—all the fancy jumps and spins and figures. The movements even have the same names as in ice skating—the double flip, the lutz, the salchow, the axel, triple mapes. Roller skaters look just as graceful and glamorous as ice skaters. They get to wear glittery costumes and headgear with sequins and feathers. Mom designs Andrea’s costumes—sometimes they have to drive all the way to Chicago for the right material and trim—and a friend of Mom’s sews them.
Skating’s harder on roller skates, because you’re on two sets of wheels on a smooth, wooden rink. You don’t have blades with edges that cut into the ice. On ice your skate blade turns easily; with rollers, you have to position yourself on the edge of your wheels to turn. And each skate weighs as much as eight pounds—much more than ice skates! Roller skating isn’t an Olympic sport yet, but lots of fans are working hard to make it one. In the meantime there are tons of local and regional competitions and national championships to go out for. There are even world championships, and roller skating is in the Annual Olympic Sports Festival and the Pan-American Games.
Andrea set out to be a champion. I took some lessons too, and went out for some figure skating and dance contests. But I couldn’t compete in singles events because skaters fall all the time. I mean all the time. I had enough trouble with bleeds without taking up roller skating.
But Andrea didn’t fall—at least not when it counted. She kept taking lessons, she kept practicing, she started to win and she didn’t stop. Soon she had skating ribbons and trophies all over the walls of her room. She wants to win the national championships—she went for the first time only a year after she started skating—and she’s been out to the U.S. Olympics summer training camp in Colorado Springs. And she and Mom got to spend more time together: Most of the time Mom drove Andrea to skating practice, and then to meets. Andrea loved having Mom there to watch her, and they hung out with the other skaters and their parents. My mom says she always knew that one of her children would be famous. For a long time she thought there would be just one: Andrea.
I wasn’t as lucky in the athletics department as Andrea. When I was eight, I was all set to go out for the Windfall Little League. Grandpa had a cow, but Mom paid no attention. The coach put me in the outfield where he thought I couldn’t get into very much trouble. He told me, “Don’t charge the ball—let it come to you.” One day a ball came at me. I waited for it, like the coach had said, but it hit me square in the mouth. I began to bleed. The coach was much more frightened than I was. I did what I always did when I got hurt: I told him to call Mom. She came and picked me up and gave me some Factor in the kitchen at home. I hated having to leave the game, and going to school with a bandage on. What a disaster! As usual, kids kept asking, “What’s wrong with you now?” But I wasn’t scared. I had no plans to quit baseball.
The Windfull Little League Team, 1981. Ryan is in bottom row, far left.
Then came another game when I was playing first base. A line drive came right at me, and hit me in the stomach. I fell back like a tree you’d chopped down. I wasn’t hurt, but the ball knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t move, but I could see the whole team crowded around, looking down at me, shouting,