Grit Happens by Mike Royal

Forward

Yes, the title of this book is a play on the “Shit Happens” line from the Forest Gump movie. You may recall Forest’s reaction after stepping in it was to simply keep running. Many times, in my life I have taken a similar approach when presented with unplanned and unpleasant situations.

What were you doing on Monday, April 8, 2019?

I was starting a week with much promise. First, I was moving into my first corner office,. Second, I was welcoming the second of four new team members. On Wednesday, I attended the initial meeting of the Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee. Checking email on Friday morning I learned my company was being acquired. When it was evident a similar position would not be available in the acquiring company, I took a voluntary separation plan.

Writing this book is my reaction to finding myself in a Gritty Situation. Much like I have done in the past, I plan to keep moving forward and focusing on those things I can-do.

While writing this book, I found myself revisiting concepts described in Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance; in her book the pioneering psychologist shows that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit”.

Chapter 1

Overnight Athletic Success

Like most success stories, my overnight athletic success has taken passion and persistence, and perhaps even a little bit of talent, over many years competing in different sports experiencing various highs and lows to be realized. The story’s duration is 18 years starting with me competing at my first National Waterski Championships. IT spans over 27 years, if it commences with me getting introduced to blind athletic competition at the 1993 Boston Marathon. It further expands to 32 years if the starting line moves back to my first marathon finish in 1988. Finally, the story could be considered to have taken nearly 40 years if it dated back to the first time I stepped on a wrestling mat and got hooked on competitive sports.

IWWF World Disabled Waterski Championships

Between July 25– 28, the 2019 International waterski and wakeboard Federation World Disabled Waterski Championships was being held at the Slastad Vannskiklubb Ski Club site located about a 40 minute drive from the Oslo airport in Skarnes, Norway. This was the 14^th World Disabled Waterski Championship, dating back to 1993, as a World Championship tournament had been contested in each of the odd number years, starting with the inaugural event that was held in Roquebrune, France. I was proud to have been selected by USA Water Ski & Wake Sports’ Adaptive sports Discipline to represent Team USA. Like USA Swimming is for swimming, USA Water Ski & Wake Sports is THE organization for water skiing and wakeboarding in the United States. The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee recognizes the organization in that role. Because waterskiing is neither competed in the Olympics nor Paralympics, the World Championships represents the highest level of international competition for waterski athletes.

USA Wins Team Gold Medal

The hot weather was working in Team USA’s favor. The average temperature was setting record highs on each day of the competition. Team USA had 14 skiers split across the Standing, Seated, and Vision Impaired divisions. Each division has female and male competitors that are further sub-divided into categories that include vision impaired individuals (blind or partially sighted), multiplegics (paraplegics and quadriplegics), leg amputees (above and below knee), arm amputees and athletes with both arm and leg disabilities. For each category, a skier’s performance is compared to a scoring factor, which is based on the world record for the category, to determine individual podium placement and team scoring. After the preliminary round Team USA had a commanding lead and essentially had locked up the gold medal. This was my fifth time to be a member of Team USA. The first Team I made was in 2009, and I had been a member of four of the prior five Teams. I was a member of the teams that won gold in 2009, 2011, and 2015, but I failed to make the 2013 gold medal winning team. I also was a member of the 2017 Team, where USA’s streak of winning four gold medals in a row had come to an end. Two years prior, in Australia, we had come in second to the host country and won the Team silver medal. It was a good feeling to know we would be returning from Norway with a victory and bringing the Team Gold medal back to the USA.

Father Time

At age 52, the clock was speeding up and time seemed to be running out on my opportunity to win an individual World Championship. At the World Championships, the field of competitors is cut in half during the preliminary round and each skier starts with a score of zero in the finals. In the preliminary round, I had secured the third and final position to ski in the audio slalom finals. Thus, I would be the first off the dock in the men’s Vision Impaired division. I would be followed by a Norwegian skier, Bjorn Gulbrandsen, skiing in his home country and then an Italian skier, Daniele Cassioli, who was the current audio slalom World Record holder. I had won the silver audio slalom medal having placed runner up to Daniele in the prior two World Championships. I was thinking, this tournament might be one of my last attempts to turn back father time for a win, Bjorn is about 10 years, while Daniele is about 20 years younger than me. Further, it was unclear, if I would be able to continue to train and compete post this World Championship as discussions regarding if there would be a position for me at the acquiring company and if a position was available where the position would be located was yet to be determined.

Competitive Tournament Water Skiing Background

First, here is some background about competitive tournament water skiing found on the worldwaterskiers.com website.

In an attempt to become as agile as possible, slalom water skiers use only one ski with feet oriented forward, one in front of the other. Slalom skis are narrow and long, at 57–70 inches (145–178 cm) …

Slalom skiing involves a multi-buoy course that the skier must go around in order to complete the pass…. There are entrance gates at the beginning and end of the course that the skier must go between, and there are 6 turn buoys that the skier must navigate around in a zigzag pattern. …

Every consecutive pass is harder than the pass before it. When a pass is completed, the boat is sped up by 3 kilometres per hour (2 mph) until the maximum speed has been reached for the division, based on the skier’s gender and age (55 kilometres per hour (34 mph) for women and 58 kilometres per hour (36 mph) for men). After the skier has run their maximum speed pass, the rope is shortened at specific increments to make it more difficult to reach the buoy width. In a tournament, the boat speeds up or the rope shortens until the skier fails to complete the slalom course by falling or missing a buoy.

… Professional water skiers will typically start at the max speed of 58 kilometers per hour (36 mph) with a rope that has already been shortened to 13 meters (43 ft). The skier with the most buoys wins the competition.”

The turn buoys are positioned 11.5 metres (38 ft) away from the center of the slalom course so as the rope is shortened beyond that the skiers are required to use the momentum generated through their turns to swing up on the side of the boat and reach out in order to get their ski around the next buoy. At this rope length the skier’s body is experiencing intense isometric contractions and extreme upper body torque with loads of up to 600 kg as they begin accelerating after rounding a turn buoy. Their top speeds will generally be more than double the boat’s speed, which means that the Pro men can reach speeds in excess of 116 kilometers per hour (72 mph) and each turn will generally generate around 4 g of force. Essentially, slalom water skiers are using their body as a lever, which allows them to withstand loads that would otherwise not be possible for the human body.”

Audio Slalom Background

Next, for some Audio Slalom background, instead of physical buoys, blind skiers use a device known as an audio slalom signal generator (ASSG) to simulate the able body waterski slalom course. For audio slalom, the physical buoys are removed and the ASSG measures the course using virtual buoys. The ASSG signals a beep when the blind skier goes through the entry gate, a beep each time the skier is wide enough to reach a virtual turn buoy on alternate sides of the boat with the first turn buoy being on the right hand side and ends with either a double-beep or triple-beep signal. A double-beep means the exit gate was reached in time to score a full pass, while a triple-beep indicates the time ran out before the skier reached one of the virtual turn buoys or the exit gate.

Audio Slalom Video

Now, or anytime, would be a good time to watch some exciting audio slalom video. You can check out the 2019 Disabled Waterski Worlds Audio Slalom – Mike’s Highlights blog entry on the Blind Canine Sports website. It contains footage my daughter, Taylor, edited of me skiing in the finals. Throughout this book, you will learn more about Taylor, and my wife, Wendy, and son Eric, who collectively I fondly refer to as The Royal Family Boat Crew. When editing the video, Taylor also provided an audio description of each pass skied, close captioning, and a full transcript to make the video more accessible. On the video there are two voices, Tony Lightfoot with The Waterski Broadcasting Company. and Taylor Royal. Tony is the primary announcer for the tournament and has a male British voice, while Taylor audio describes the skiing passes and the podium and has a female American voice. I am a bit biased, but it might be the best two minutes and 52 seconds of video coverage for the entire tournament.

First Off the Dock in the Vision Impaired Final Round

Visually impaired skiers are classified into the two categories of V1 totally blind and V2/3 partially sighted. All three of us who qualified for the finals were in the V1, total blind category. As per classification rules we had “no light perception at all in either eye, up to light perception but inability to recognize the shape of a hand at any distance or in any direction”. Therefore, we all were required to wear blackout goggles to eliminate any advantage one of us might gain with any of our very limited remaining functioning sight. This also meant we would be skiing head-to-head and the best score skied in the finals would win the gold medal.

Like the pro water skiers, we were given the choice to select the speed and rope length for our opening pass coming off the starting dock. Each time a successful full pass is skied, the ASSG signals a double-beep, the boat speed is increase until the maximum speed of 58 kilometers-per-hour, 36 mile-per-hour, for men skiers, is reached. Then, for subsequent successful full passes skied at maximum boat speed, the rope length is shortened by a predetermined length. The increasing of boat speed or shortening of the rope increases the difficulty of each subsequent pass. Ultimately, the skier who scores the most buoys on the hardest pass wins.

In the preliminary round, I did not complete my second pass. Even though, during training, typically, I would complete this pass over 90% of the time. So I was relieved, but not overly surprised, when I heard the double-beep indicating I ran the second pass. However, I was very surprised the boat was taking a slightly different path, after the exit gates were scored, than the path used during familiarization and the preliminary round. Being confused by the change in boat path and uncertain about the directions being yelled from the back of the boat, I decided to drop the handle. I knew the rules allowed for a blind skier to release the handle at the end of their pass to execute a controlled stop for safety purposes. I also knew that one time during training when stopping at that end of the lake, I dropped too late and ended up in a weed patch. While flailing my arms and awkwardly wiggling back-and-forth on my ski trying to remove the vine wrapped around my neck made the passengers in the boat and spectators watching from the shore laugh during training, I did not want to repeat such a distraction in the finals.

Due to the handle release, the boat had to circle around and then drag me further away from the starting gate to give the boat enough time to reach speed before entering the course. Lucky for you, Taylor cut this unnecessary video from her production. On the third pass, the boat would be going maximum speed, 58 kilometers-per-hour, and the rope length would be shortened to 13 meters long. Incidentally, my tournament personal best score was 5.5 buoys on this pass. Sitting in the water waiting to get pulled up I was recalling that in the opening pass, there was a moderate-plus head wind blowing straight down the lake, which is a favorable condition as it would allow me to control the speed of the ski better and maintain a tight line to make symmetrical turns. There was no reason to play it safe, so I went out with an aggressive gate shot and ripped through the entire pass and in the process set a new tournament personal best. Taylor even provides a nice description of the fist pump I threw at the end of the pass to celebrate hearing the double-beep from the ASSG.

The next pass would be on a 12 meter rope length. Starting the fourth pass at the other end of the lake meant that the favorable head wind just turned into a more challenging tail wind. Nevertheless, I still went out with an aggressive gate shot, but found myself scrambling on nearly every turn. The wind was blowing me down course and I was turning into a loose line causing some hard hits each time when the rope tightened back up. No symmetrical turns on this pass, instead I felt like a bull rider holding on for all I was worth just trying to make the end of the round. I did not ski a successful full pass, even though I had signaled all six turn buoys in time the ASSG sounded a triple-beep to indicate the exit gates were not reached before time for the pass ran out. Therefore, I scored 5.5 buoys. This score was a whole pass better than my tournament best and equaled the World Record.

The announcer was going wild. I could hear Tony over the shore-side speakers exclaiming, “Alright, the score has come through its 5 1/2 on 12 meters. It equals the world record! So, Mike Royal right from the get-go has just stomped on the existing world record score 5 1/2 on 12 meters.”

Thank You Royal Family Boat Crew

As soon as I was back on land, I quickly gathered The Royal Family Boat Crew to wait with me on an out-of-the-way corner of the starting dock. I had put a good score out there for the other skiers to Chase and my skiing was most likely finished, unless Bjorn or Daniele tied me for the lead that would result in a runoff for the gold medal.

Waiting for the final two competitors to ski, I reflected on how thankful I was that my family was here with me to enjoy this moment. I hoped the numerous weekends spent on the water training and the various family vacation centered around a ski tournament instead of something they might have rather done were worth it. Thoughts like did I place too much emphasis on what I wanted to try to accomplish at the expense of some of their hopes and dreams were running through my head. About this time, Wendy commented, “You didn’t toss-and-turn all night or even seem that nervous like in past years.”. I shared that last night, before falling asleep, I sent up a quick silent prayer of gratitude for having made it this far and asked God to just let me ski safe and simply do my best. Then, we shared hugs and fist bumps as I thanked each member of The Royal Family Boat Crew again for always being there for me. All we could do now is to wait for the remaining two skiers.

Royal Moves into Silver Medal Position 

On the first pass, the skier from Norway bobbled turning around buoy three and failed to score buoy four. Failing to make his opening pass ended his competition. This is one of the cruel realities of slalom skiing. If the skier fails to ski their opening pass, their day is ended early. I knew Bjorn was probably mentally kicking himself knowing he runs that pass most every time in practice and tournaments. I was all too familiar with the feeling as I missed the opening pass in both of my first two World Championships and did not make the finals. At this point, I knew I had at least improved one position from the preliminary round and could do no worse than the silver medal. Having won silver at the prior two World Championships, I also was thinking about the male-equivalent of always being the bridesmaid and never the bride.

Royal Wins Gold Medal

Next, the skier from Italy started his skiing with a pass that was equal to my second pass. He ran the pass easily into the head wind traveling away from the starting dock. I was intensively listening to the ASSG as it sounded beeps during the second pass heading back towards the starting dock. I knew, if this second pass was completed, Daniele’s third pass would be on a 12 meter rope length going maximum boat speed, which would be equal to the pass that I had posted a 5.5 buoy score. He would be taking the potential gold medal winning pass into the more favorable headwind condition. As I had just set a new tournament personal best heading in that direction, I thought if given the opportunity Daniele would have a good shot at running his third pass for the win. As the beeps got nearer to the starting dock, it sounded like the beeps signaling the turns might be just a bit slow probably due to having to negotiate the tail wind. I could tell it was going to be close as I heard the beep for buoy five followed by the beep for buoy six, then a triple-beep. The announcer was saying, “It looks like a complete pass.” I was thinking no, no, no way, I was sure I heard three beeps indicating the exit gates were not reached in time. Finally, the judges came across the radio with a score of 5.5 buoys for the pass.

The Royal Family Boat Crew could finally celebrate a World Champion.