Convocation | Lex Gillette

November 15, 2017

No Need for Sight When You Have Vision

Lex Gillette, current world record holder in the long jump, captivated his Cate audience at Convocation on November 13 as he told his personal story. Gradually going blind over the course of his seventh year, Gillette talked about multiple failed operations to permanently re-attach his retinas, the slow narrowing of his vision, and the steadfast support of his family as he learned to steer himself through the world without sight. Throughout the next few years, Gillette learned to walk outside with a cane, read Braille, and manage his daily routines. By high school, he found himself in a mainstream classroom, one of a very few sight-impaired students in a very large North Carolina school. And during a routine physical fitness test, everyone learned that Gillette could jump better than anybody.

Gillette called out his first mentor, Coach Whitmer, as the man who enabled him to compete in the Paralympics. As Gillette transitioned from the standing to the running long jump, Whitmer stood next to the takeoff board to clap and yell when Gillette needed to push off. The strategy worked. In Athens in 2004, right after he graduated from high school, Gillette won his first Paralympic medal in front of his mother, his grandmother, and his coach. This event was the beginning of a journey that continues today, as Gillette is working towards tryouts for his 5th Paralympic team.

Gillette is a world-class athlete, but he was able to show Cate students how his journey might contain valuable insights for their own lives. He had 3 stories to tell, each with its own lesson. To start, Gillette described his first competition in an indoor stadium. He couldn’t hear his coach very well, as sound was echoing strangely in the venue. Unsure during the run, he crashed into the stanchions. Gillette overheard a spectator wondering why a coach would allow someone to take part in an event where he might get hurt. Gillette urged the Cate students to remember that they can’t let other people’s doubts hold them back.

Wearing a mischievous grin, Gillette entitled his second story “My first driving experience.” The audience broke into laughter at the description of Gillette and his college roommate, in the roommate’s girlfriend’s car, looping around an empty parking lot with Gillette at the wheel. He steered as his roommate gave him directions. Gillette remembered the fun but also the fact that his friend allowed him to forget he was blind. His lesson learned: if you are figuratively in the driver’s seat and headed towards a goal, you will forget about your shortcomings.

The final story for the Cate audience began on a sad note, as Gillette recalled the series of doctor’s visits when he was seven and eight years old. At each visit, Gillette saw less and less of the vision chart, finally unable to identify which way the largest E was pointing and then unable to see the chart at all. Looking back, however, Gillette pointed to these experiences as allowing him to understand the difference between sight and visual acuity. Gillette now lives his life from this lesson: while sight might be what is around you now, vision is what allows you to see what can be if you are committed to what you can imagine in your heart and in your mind.

After his presentation, Gillette took questions from the audience. Junior Liam Mundy wondered if the presence of more powerful disabled characters in the media, like blind superheroes, would be helpful for kids with disabilities. Gillette replied that he would have loved to learn about such characters when he was going blind as a child. He is a committed advocate for anything that will help kids see what is possible.

Freshman Lily Zanze asked whether Gillette ever felt as though being blind had held him back in any way. While Gillette admitted that going blind certainly was a challenge he needed to overcome, he felt that more than anything, his blindness helped him to tap into other areas. As he said, “Any one thing that you lose, you could come up with ten or 20 things that you’ve gained.”

After enthusiastic applause from an excited crowd, Gillette continued on to a reception hosted by the track team.