Loggers to hear tennis pro

NO HANDICAP HERE — Roger Crawford overcame birth defects to become a tennis professional.

The 2009 Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference, the 60th annual such event, will feature inspirational speaker Roger Crawford at its Kick-off Breakfast at 8 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, in the Redding Convention Center.

Tickets to the breakfast are $20 and may be obtained in advance by mailing a check made payable to SCLC and mailed to: SCLC, P.O. Box 993220, Redding, CA 96099-3220. Tickets will also be available for purchase at the door starting at 7 a.m. on Feb. 12.

"With an economy so challenging, the likes most of us have never seen, don't miss Roger Crawford as he tells one of the most inspiring life stories ever told," states a press release issued by Mark Lathrop of Sierra Pacific Industries in Anderson.

Lathrop describes Crawford's story as, "Truly wonderful medicine" and "that shot in the arm that most of us can use right now."

Crawford, now 43, was born with a rare birth defect called Ectrodactylism. The condition left him with shortened forearms, no palms, one finger extending from his right wrist and a finger and thumb from his left wrist. He wears an artificial left leg and his right leg has an atrophied calf that teeters on half a foot, as if on a skate blade.

As a child, Crawford would jokingly tell other children that his limbs were the way they are because he had been attacked by a shark, a condition the youngsters could understand much more easily than a birth defect.

At age 11, Crawford decided that he wanted to learn to play tennis and started hanging around the Racquet Club in Danville, where Tony Fisher, now 66, was working summers as a tennis coach while teaching science in nearby high schools during the rest of each year. Inspired by Crawford's determination not only to learn the game but to play it at a competitive level, the two formed a bond and lasting friendship that has spanned more than 30 years.

After years of constant practice under Fisher's tutelage (to the point where he wore out his artificial leg every six months, confounding the prosthesis maker), Crawford made Danville's Monte Vista High School varsity tennis team - one of the top prep teams in the nation - by competing with 80 able-bodied players for one of nine team positions. Crawford's personal record during those four years of high school was 47 wins, six losses, with half of the losses in his freshman year.

Crawford then attended college at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he not only made the tennis team, but finished his LMU career with 22 wins and 11 losses. Crawford is the only athlete with four impaired limbs to compete in a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I college sport. He later became the only athlete with four impaired limbs to become certified by the United States Professional Tennis Association as a tennis professional.

Sports Illustrated magazine calls Roger Crawford one of the most accomplished physically challenged athletes in history. "He is a powerful testament to showing that choices matter more than circumstances," a columnist wrote in a biography about Crawford.

Today, Crawford resides in Granite Bay, where he is a coveted international motivational speaker who in 1996 was inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame. Besides tennis, Crawford's experiences include carrying the Olympic torch on one stretch of its journey from Athens to Los Angeles in 1984 and writing several books including "Playing From the Heart" (1989), an autobiography written in with Michael Bowker, and "How High Can You Bounce?" (1998), a self-help book about resilience.

He has appeared on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Inside Edition and many other network and syndicated television shows. His inspiring life story was included in the original Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

"I've always been curious as to why there are some people who get knocked down and knocked out, and others who get knocked down and come back stronger than before," says Crawford. "I believe an attitude of resilience, hopefulness and optimism can be learned. We, alone, choose the quality of our thoughts. In tennis, I realized I wasn't going to be the fastest or the most powerful, but if I could hit the ball over the net one more time than my opponent, I'd win the point."

A recognized champion on and off the tennis court, Roger is a living example that all of us have the ability to achieve our possibilities despite the obstacles.

This year's Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference runs Feb. 12-14 at the Shasta District Fair grounds in Anderson. The trade show features more than 75 exhibitors and is free and open to the public.