I know that professional wrestling is not really a sport, and the only reason I posted this is for the younger boys (particularly) and girls who may enjoy this form of “sports entertainment”… Often, many of you write asking for leads on who currently is active in sports with ld, so here it goes:
Thanks to Derek Henkels for sending the following DDP interview recap:
Diamond Dallas Page did an interview for Good Day Minnesota on KMSP TV (UPN 9) in Minneapolis on Friday.
Just before DDP was set to do the interview, meteorologist Mike Tsolinas was doing the weather. Halfway through, he strained his index finger, and asked DDP to help him out. DDP came on camera and picked Tsolinas up and used him as a pointer while Tsolinas read the weather.
Now on to the interview. They said that they were going to talk about his three R’s in his life, “wrasslin’, reading, and writing books.”
DDP was asked about his struggle with reading first.
He started talking about how he has dyslexia and ADD and he had a tough time reading growing up. He said that he probably graduated with a third grade reading level. He said he got through it by adapting to the situation, BS’ed his way, and just skated by. When he was 31 years old, he made a decision to set a goal. He was going to learn how to read. He read his first book when he was 32 and it was Lee Iacocca’s book. Page said it took him “just as long to read it as it did for him (Iacocca) to live it”. He said since then, everyday he has continued to read and he has gotten better and better. Now he is a fair reader. Since he has ADD, he wants to be all over the place and he needs an area where he can just concentrate. Then he brought up his book Positively Page.
DDP said that now he is writing a book he calls A to Z with DDP, and it’s positive thoughts for kids. He said that after the interview he is going to a school to talk to the kids. He thought it was going to be kindergartners and first graders and he was going to read them that book. But he found out that it’s 4th, 5th and 6th graders, so he is going to talk about his life and how he turned negatives into positives.
For the past three months he has been a “real, real bad guy”, and he left because he had knee surgery, and when he comes back, he is going to be this “ridiculously positive individual”. His character will have an “everything is good, I’ve never had a bad day in my life type attitude.” In the beginning it is going to be to the degree that you want to strangle him because he’s so positive. He said, “ so far the vignettes we’ve done have been very entertaining. But, I get to work with that, while I’m going out and working on what I’m going to be, a motivational speaker, when I’m done.” And that’s why he doing that with kids now. He is going to focus on reading, positive attitude, and turning negatives into positives.
Then he was asked about his charity “Bang it Out for Books”.
He said the reason he is doing that is because he was doing these autograph sessions and making a great deal of money doing them. He wanted some way to give back. He is very fortunate in his life not to have anybody in his family die of cancer or anything like that, so he didn’t have a cause. He looked for where he had a problem and where he could relate. “Reading.” So any time he did an autograph session he would put in conjunction with it an elementary school where he would donate five hundred to a thousand dollars to help buy books for libraries or schools. That’s where he got into talking to kids about reading. Then, he talked a bit about his wife. “My wife is brilliant. She’s got like a 143 IQ. She got her masters from Northwestern. I mean, she was read to in the womb. I mean, she could read by the time she was three years old.” Then he said she had a better start with reading than him and a lot of kids have problems reading.
The main thing he wants to push out to kids is, “Diamond Dallas Page, six foot five, 250 pound, bad guy at times good guy at others, can turn around and say, ‘I have a problem reading. I couldn’t read. If you got a problem we can really help you now. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. And that’s what I tell the kids. Don’t be afraid to dream.”
ANd
The other thing that I have noticed about the newest trend to come out of the LD closet.
That it isn’t the terrible thing people say it is. That there are actually very positive things about being LD,that some of the VERY reasons for success is due to being LD.
I find this factor very encouraging. It makes me think that teachers and school system’s around the country will start learning that it’s the way in which they teach the LD student that makes them LD.
At least,they have to stop and wonder why the kid they nominated as the least likely to succeed, is now making far more money then they are.
Got to be something to that,right?
I have heard that companies like schwab actually look favorably at the ADHD/LD student,these are the big idea guys,the ones who think outside of the box.
Companies?? Charles Schwab himself is dyslexic...:-)
… as is MR. Cisco — as in that huge corporation…
It is just not a competition, but rather an exhibition. Hell, some of those guys are almost as good in the ring and off the ropes as Mary Lou or Nadjia ever were on the mats.
It really pleases me greatly and gives me hope for the future generation when people with the exposure and adoration as DDP are willing to come forward and talk about how they have overcome their LD’s. I wish more of the clebrities both in sports and in Hollywood would share themselves with us in this way. Esteem may be the single hardest thing to teach to a child with an LD, especially if the child in question does not have the support of good teachers or the absolute love of their parents. Life will be hard enough for someone with no LD, it can be exponentially harder for those who have a condition or syndrome that hobbles them. And both dyslexia and ADD/ADHD may be the hardest to overcome because both can be difficult to accurate diagnose (read: “prove”) and so many of the “professionals” continue to deny its existance. Just this week on a board for sped teachers I frequent, one poster equated the rise in LD children as being caused not by some environmental toxin or genetic damage, but on laziness (yes, Randy is a bigot).
Thanx for this post Andy. Perhaps DDP’s “confession” will help a child or two understand that their condition is not their fault, and that they can bloom despite it.