Stuttering is a common denominator - May 2007 announcements

Former stutters include Bob Love, Tiger Woods, Johnny Damon, Bill Walton, Adrian Peterson
 
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — NBA All-Star Bob Love joins an array of well-known sports figures to speak out for those who stutter: Bill Walton, Johnny Damon, Tiger Woods, Kenyon Martin and Ken Venturi.

Love leads the 2007 campaign for National Stuttering Awareness Week, May 14-20.

Love knows first-hand the experiences of someone who stutters. He has overcome considerable frustrations and setbacks since his glory years with the Chicago Bulls.            

“Bob is more than a great basketball star and community leader,” said Jane Fraser, president of the 60-year-old Stuttering Foundation. “He leads this year’s Stuttering Awareness Week because of his courage in coping with his speech impediment.”

“I know how important it is to receive speech therapy at an early age,” Love said. “My grandmother Ella used to swat me in the mouth with a dishrag and say ‘Spit out those words, Robert Earl,’” he recalls.

“That approach didn’t work very well, but it underscores the public’s misunderstanding of stuttering that is still prevalent,” said Love.

Difficulty in finding a job for those who stutter is nothing new to him. In the 1970s, he made the NBA All-Star Team three times and led the Chicago Bulls in scoring seven straight years. But he still stuttered, and there were fewer media interviews or endorsements than a player of his caliber would normally receive.

“After my retirement from the NBA, reaction by potential employers to my speaking difficulty turned the usually tough post-sports career adjustment into a living nightmare,” Love relates. “I had a college degree, but personnel managers seldom call back someone who stutters on the telephone.”

By the end of 1984 — some seven years after millions had watched him play NBA basketball — Love took the only job offered to him. He would wash dishes and bus tables for Nordstrom department store.

Yet it was here that Love’s story began a slow and difficult turn for the better. First, there was the corporate manager of Nordstrom, who offered to have his company pay for speech therapy. Enter speech pathologist Susan Hamilton, who would guide Love through countless hours of therapy in which he learned to manage his moments of stuttering and speak more fluently.

“Today my message to young people who stutter and their parents is direct: Don’t wait, like I did,” Love emphasizes. “Speech therapy during childhood has the greatest chance of success.”

Bob Love joins an impressive list of famous people who have not let stuttering hold them back from rewarding lives and careers. For more information, call the nonprofit Stuttering Foundation at 800-992-9392 or visit www.stutteringhelp.org.


Football player won’t let stuttering tackle him

MEMPHIS, Tenn. —  Chicago Bears football player Adrian Peterson says he has struggled with stuttering his whole life.

Peterson isn’t the only sports star who has wrestled with this complex disorder. Golf superstar Tiger Woods recently told CBS’s 60 Minutes that it takes hard work and a competitive spirit to overcome childhood stuttering.

Other sports stars who have been successful despite their stuttering include NBA Hall of Famer and sports commentator Bill Walton, Denver Nuggets’ basketball star Kenyon Martin, Chicago Bulls’ legend Bob Love and U.S. Open golf champion Ken Venturi.

Peterson has struggled with stuttering since he was a child.

“It’s been like this my whole life. Since I was 5 years old, I’ve been stuttering. It’s been a major part of my life,” he told The Times of Northwest Indiana. 

“Growing up, it was hard, but it’s who I am,” the Bears running back said to the Chicago Sun-Times. “My advice to [others who stutter] is don’t allow it to hold you back from achieving your goals.”

“The parallels between speech performance and sports performance are striking,” said Jane Fraser, president of the nonprofit Stuttering Foundation, “and Peterson is the latest example of how the many hours of practice and hard work to win in sports are no different from those long hours spent in therapy for stuttering.”

“Adrian Peterson is the perfect role model for all school-age children who struggle with this complex disorder,” Fraser added.
 
There are many prominent athletes among the three million people who stutter and the world’s most famous golfer is among them. “The words got lost, you know, somewhere between the brain and the mouth. And it was very difficult, but I fought through it. I went to a school to try and get over that, and I just would work my tail off,” Woods told 60 Minutes.

Walton dealt with stuttering just like he did basketball. “I thought about the fundamentals of the game and how to start with the basics like the ability to mechanically duplicate moves on a basketball court. And then I just applied that to speaking.”

“Countless hours of work taught me to manage moments of difficult speech,” says Chicago’s Love.

In a recent interview, Denver Nuggets’ Martin said of his stuttering: “How I got through it was just by working hard at it.”

Venturi adds, “I have had to work through the years to overcome stuttering and to speak more easily and fluently.” Venturi compares moving smoothly through speech to moving gracefully through a golf stroke.
 
The Foundation offers free streaming videos, books, downloadable brochures and a worldwide referral list at www.stutteringhelp.org. Help is also available by calling 800-992-9392.
 
The Foundation offers help for stuttering through its helpline at 800-992-9392 and online at www.stutteringhelp.org .