A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

A Paralympian's Oral History

BONNIE ST. JOHN

1984 Paralympic Winter Games – Innsbruck, Austria

– Alpine Skiing –

Interviewed by: Wayne Wilson December 12, 2019 New York, New York

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A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

BONNIE ST. JOHN

Wayne Wilson Interviewer: Today is December 12, 2019. My name is Wayne Wilson. I will be interviewing Bonnie St. John as part of the LA84 Foundation's series of oral histories with Paralympians. I'm in Los Angeles today. Bonnie is in New York and we are communicating by Skype.

Bonnie, these oral histories tend to follow a chronological order. So, let's begin at the beginning with me asking you where you were born and when you were born.

Bonnie St. John: I'm Bonnie St. John and I was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1964, on November 7th.

Wilson: Do you have brothers and sisters?

St. John: I have a brother and a sister. Do you want names or what do you want to know?

Wilson: Are you older, younger, in the middle? Where do you fall in the birth order?

St. John: I'm the youngest. So, I have an oldest sister, and then my brother and then me.

Wilson: How much older are they?

St. John: My sister's 3 ½ years older, and my brother's 2 1/2 years older.

Wilson: Do you have an earliest memory of growing up?

St. John: Gosh, my earliest memories are having a Fisher-Price phone that I dragged around, and being in Detroit, Michigan, and seeing snow. My family moved to San Diego when I was about 1 1/2. So, I know that if I remember seeing snow on the ground with a sled, that had to be before I was 1 1/2.

Wilson: What did your parents do?

St. John: My mother was a schoolteacher and then moved up to some administrative roles and then eventually became a vice principal and then a principal of schools. My father, I think, was an engineer, but he left before I was born. So, I didn't grow up with him around. My stepfather was retired. He was quite a bit older than my mother. So, he never worked while he was at home.

Wilson: How old were you when your mother married your stepfather?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: Pretty young, like 1 1/2, 2.

Wilson: Were you still in Detroit?

St. John: We were in Detroit when they got married and then they moved to San Diego.

Wilson: Have you ever met or seen your birth father?

St. John: I met him a couple of times. He died when I was 12.

Wilson: You moved to San Diego when you were really young. Your stepfather was retired. Your mother was doing education administration. What did she do in San Diego when you moved?

St. John: Well, she was still a teacher at that point. So, she moved from being a teacher in Michigan to being a teacher in California. And, ultimately in California worked her way up the ranks to being an administrator and then principal. She earned her Ph.D. along the way, as well.

Wilson: Where did she do that?

St. John: She got her degree from Northern Arizona University, but there was a Point Loma University in San Diego. She took a lot of her classes there, but ultimately got her degree from NAU.

Wilson: I read in a number of biographies that your stepfather physically abused you. Could you explain what that involved?

St. John: I don't know how much detail you want to hear, but …

Wilson: As much as you're comfortable with.

St. John: Yeah, it's all too common a story, sadly, but my mother married a much older man. My mother was Black. She was 27 years old and had three kids, and married a man 40 years older than her, who was white. He was a pedophile, basically, and abused both my sister and I. You know, looking back I can see, well, he took advantage of somebody who was really vulnerable, who didn't have a lot of family to protect her, or look after her and her kids, and took advantage. From the age of 2 to the age of 7 I was abused by him after school at home. I blanked a lot of those memories out for many years and only started to remember after he passed away. He passed away when I was about 18. I guess that's a pretty common situation that in order to survive you blank out those memories, and then once he passed away the memories surfaced. So, I've had to deal with that especially when I had my own daughter. The pain of that and the dysfunction of all that started to cause me a lot of issues. So, I've had to do a lot to deal with that. I wrote a book called

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

"How Strong Women Pray" and in that book I talk about some of the healing process, some of which was prayer and some of which was a lot of hard work and therapy, too. I think too many people talk about just the problem. They don't talk about the solutions. So, in "How Strong Women Pray" I did talk a lot about the things I had to do to heal. It's not enough to just sensationalize and say, "This happened and it was awful." I think we do have the power to get better. A lot of the work I've done in my life has been around resilience. And, the physical disability is an obvious part of that, but the abuse is another big piece where I've had to be resilient and work at it – not just hope to be resilient, but to actually work at it.

Wilson: We don't have to spend a lot of time on this, but this involved your sister as well. Is that correct?

St. John: My sister was also abused by him, too.

Wilson: OK. So, you're now in San Diego. Your mother when she went there was a schoolteacher. Eventually she got into administration. Can you describe how her career progressed? She eventually was a high school principal. Is that correct?

St. John: She eventually became a high school principal. I mean, she was a great teacher. She worked at a continuation school for a while. She had a lot of tough students and she was at tough schools. She later became vice principal at an inner-city Black school in San Diego. People who might be familiar with Marcus Allen, the football player, or Terrell Davis, they played football. I watched them play high school football at her school. She had some tough assignments, though, some difficult schools that were really under-resourced. She was very creative and very innovative. She would get a lot of sponsors from the community to put resources in. She made a difference. When she passed away over 300 people came to her funeral and shared stories … There were parents of her students whose lives she changed. So, she had quite a career.

Wilson: When you were living in San Diego you were still very young. You had your leg amputated below the knee. Why was that?

St. John: So, I was born with a birth defect. It's called PFFD. And, I think it's, "[Proximal] femoral focal deficiency" is what it stands for. And, they don't really know why it happens, but I was missing a growth center in my femur. So, when we say, "a below-the-knee amputation," it's a little misleading because it looks like a below-the-knee amputation because my stump comes down to about where my knee would have been. But, the reality is that my thigh is about four inches long. So, they actually amputated my ankle. And, it's the combination of my really short thigh and my calf that comes down to above my knee … They cut off the front of my foot and sewed over my heel. So, I still have my heel pad and that's just above my knee. They actually did shorten my leg at one point. Anyway, I went through a lot of

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

surgeries. I have a very small leg and I still have my heel pad, but it comes down to just above my knee.

Wilson: In this process was there one surgery that was really the major surgery, or was this a process of several [major] surgeries?

St. John: When I went in, when I was 5, I stayed in the hospital for six months. I think I had a couple of surgeries and that's when I came out with my first prosthesis. So, that was the major … I actually turned 6 while I was in the hospital. Later I came back and had other surgeries and there were other things that happened, but the main surgery was when I was 5 or 6.

Wilson: What kind of therapy did you go through and how did you learn to use a prosthesis?

St. John: One therapy I had to do they piled books in a pile and put a bathroom scale on top. I had to push with my stump, after my leg had been amputated, to toughen it up enough because you have to bear weight. You have to stand on your stump. So, I had to practice over time to toughen it up enough to stand on it. I remember the nurse would sit there looking at the scale and say, "Push harder, Bonnie. Push harder." I was 5 years old, you know. I'd be crying. I hated that nurse. But, when I think about it, it was so kind that she was there pushing me and helping me stick with it so that I could have a better life. I often think about that. Sometimes we need to recruit people into our lives to push us to get better because on our own we can't always get where we need to go. So, sometimes we do need to ask people to push us so that we can be everything that we want to be. To learn how to walk, to be able to dance at my wedding, carry my baby daughter to bed, all those were gifts that I got because of that hard therapy I had to do.

Wilson: Because of that obnoxious nurse.

St. John: Exactly, that obnoxious nurse is what made that possible.

Wilson: Did you start school at the regular age or did your time in the hospital delay that?

St. John: No. Actually, I started kindergarten … My birthday's at the end of the year. So, I actually started kind of young relative to other people. First grade was when I was out of school a lot. They actually had a school in the hospital. So, I got to take courses. I loved the school in the hospital because I could do … I could work as fast as I wanted to. I went through instead of one spelling test a week, I could do three spelling tests a week. I just cruised through the whole book. So, I actually had a ball going to school in the hospital. I didn't fall behind.

It was actually a teacher that saw me when I was in kindergarten that told my family about the Shriners Hospital and said, "She's limping around on this brace. We can do better than this. We can send her to the Shriners Hospital, and they can do the amputation. They can

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

do the legs." And, the Shriners Hospital paid for everything. My mother, who was a schoolteacher, thought, "I can't afford all this," [but] didn't have to worry about it because the Shriners Hospital took care of everything.

Wilson: So, eventually you entered, for lack of a better term, a regular elementary school. Is that correct?

St. John: Oh, I was always in regular schools. It's just when I was in the hospital … If I was in the hospital for six months, I was in a hospital school. But, it's interesting that you say that because back when I was a kid there was a sense that as a disabled kid you should be in a separate class, or you should be doing something separate. My mother actually had to fight to get me quote, mainstreamed. Now that's the norm, but at the time she did fight for that. She used to tell us stories saying that the teacher came to her and said, "We've got to put her in a different class. She falls down all the time." My mother said, "So, she gets up. There's nothing wrong with her head. Let her be in a regular class." So, she had to fight for that. I'm certainly grateful that she did.

Wilson: In addition to [educators] trying to move you to a different school did you face any kinds of problems with your classmates or your teachers?

St. John: I used to get teased by the other kids. It's hard to be a girl and feel attractive when you have one leg. I guess there must be a challenge for boys like you've got to feel strong and you've only got one leg. But, I think, as a girl you're trying to feel attractive. It's almost as if the boys look at the girls and you're sort of an "it." You're not feminine. You're not a girl. So, that was challenging and then getting picked on and teased … I always remember explaining to people … that I felt that if I could just explain to them what happened, they would have a better perspective. So, it was … maybe it was growing up with a teacher, I was always felt like I was teaching people about my disability.

Wilson: Were there any teachers who were – I don't want to use the term inspirational – but valuable to you during this period?

St. John: Well, I always loved school and I loved reading. I would spend hours after school reading or on the playground even reading sometimes if I couldn't keep up with the other kids. I loved school.

I thought you were going to ask were there some teacher who taught me something about my leg or about my disability, but it really didn't have anything to do about my disability for me. It was just about learning and school and reading and writing. I was actually very good at math and science and so just learning was always something I was hungry for.

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

Wilson: How did your mother treat you? What was her general point of view with regard to your amputation? I think you answered part of that already, but did she coddle you? Did she encourage you to just go out do things, and if you fell down, you fell down?

St. John: Actually, she really wanted me to be treated like other kids. It's interesting. I had a bicycle, and my brother and sister had a bicycle. It was only later, many years later, that I found out she spent more on my bicycle than my brother and sister's because she wanted me to have a lighter bicycle so that I could manage it better. I guess that was part of her logic. But, she wanted me to have a bicycle. She didn't tell me she was buying me a different bicycle. Other people might say, "Oh, don't let her ride a bicycle. She might get hurt." But, she wanted me to be able to go out, and do what my brother and sister did. She was going to make some accommodations, but she wasn't going to make a big deal out of it. So, she tried to give me the normal opportunities.

Wilson: So …

St. John: Wait. One funny story about that. So, we had different chores and my brother did more the outside chores like trimming plants or mowing the lawn. My sister and I had to do more laundry and dishes and things like that.

Wilson: Girls' stuff.

St. John: Girls' stuff. And, I envied my brother. I'm like, "I'd rather be outside. That looks like way more fun than what I have to do." So, I begged her to let me mow the lawn. Finally, I got to mow the lawn and she got so much trash from the neighbors. Like the neighbors, "You're letting your little disabled girl out there mowing the lawn. How can you do that?" I never got to mow the lawn again.

Wilson: In your life you've been an athlete, an author, an advocate slash activist for Paralympic sports. Let's start to turn this a little bit and talk about your development as an athlete. You were a skier in the 1984 Paralympic Games. You won medals, which you're wearing. I assume those are your medals from '84.

St. John: Correct.

Wilson: I guess my first question is, did you do any sports before you started skiing?

St. John: Throughout school I was always in regular P.E. and intramural kinds of sports. I always tried to do things. You know, it's funny looking back because I struggled to do P.E. with other kids and it was often very difficult. But, I just always stuck with it. I didn't feel like I had an option to get out. I look back and think I could have just said I was disabled and gotten out of that. Like, "Oh my God, why didn't I do that." But, I think that my mother had always wanted me to do it and I always kind of felt that I had an obligation to do it. Looking

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

back I'm like, "I don't know why." But, I just was bullheaded and I would do it no matter how hard it was. I would be in P.E. and we would get in the pool and I can swim really well, but then they say, "OK, now everybody does backstroke on your back with no hands." So, I'm on my back just kicking with one leg and I would do it. I never cried, "Uncle."

Wilson: Were you involved in any sports outside of physical education, or was it just the intramural sports you did?

St. John: Not really. I'm trying to think of examples, although … I grew up in San Diego. At one point in high school … they had a block schedule. So, all of our classes were two hours each. At one point there was an option to do sailing or water sports, and then another option to do cycling. It was not easy to get into that. And, I did. I raised my hand. I kind of fought to get into it. So, I did water sports one semester and I did cycling in P.E. another semester. So, I was raising my hand to try to do innovative things.

Wilson: Let's talk about skiing. How did you get introduced to the sport?

St. John: A friend of mine in high school, Barbara Warmath, invited me to go skiing with her family over Christmas vacation. I remember she created a coupon for me out of notebook paper that she cut out that was a birthday gift. My birthday's in November and she gave me a coupon that said, "One week of skiing over Christmas vacation." Barbara's an amazing person. She helped me when I went out and she picked me up. I kept falling down and she picked me up over and over again. But, even before I could go skiing with Barbara … So, I got this certificate. I needed to find out, "Do I need special equipment? What do I do?"

I didn't want to be a burden to Barbara's family. So, I'm trying to investigate this beforehand. So, I have a couple of months to figure it out. At that time you couldn't just go on the Internet. Now kids would think, "You just go on the Internet and figure it out." You couldn't do that back then. So, I got out the Yellow Pages. I called a whole bunch of sporting goods stores. They said, "You know, we've heard of it, but we don't have any of that equipment." So, I thought, "OK. I'll call a ski area." And they said, "Yeah, we have the disabled skiers who come here, but we don't know where they get their equipment." So, it actually was very difficult. I finally found a club of disabled people who did sports. It was called Amputees in Motion.

Got in touch with the president of that club and he lent me his outriggers, his own personal outriggers to go on the first trip. It would be so much easier now. Most ski areas have a lot of these resources and it is much more common. But, it was really difficult for me to get those resources.

Wilson: When you first skied, first with the disabled group and then with Barb, where did you ski in California?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: I first skied at Snow Summit. I went there with a group of disabled skiers. The tickets sold out. So, we had to go night skiing. So, it was really miserable. I was wearing jeans and knit mittens and a windbreaker and a sweater. I'm from San Diego. So, I didn't have the right winter clothes. We were night skiing and I kept falling and falling. I was barely even moving down the hill. I was just falling even before I could even ski. I was black and blue and frozen. I think if I hadn't been committed to go skiing with Barb's family, I would have just given up. But instead, I went to Salvation Army. I got some new ski pants and a jacket and got a little better prepared – some gloves.

And, then when I went out with her family they were very patient. Her brothers and her took turns staying with me on the bunny hill and just picking me up. I didn't even have a ski instructor. Just practicing because I couldn't snowplow. With one ski you can't snowplow. So, if I could get up any speed at all, I'd crash into a person or something to stop. Finally, I got enough balance I could turn left and turn right. And, after a few days I could ski on intermediate slopes. Whereas somebody else who is just starting might still be on the bunny hill snowplowing. My first couple of days were really hard, but by the third and fourth days, I was on intermediate slopes. I was hooked. I was excited. And, by the end of that first week of skiing I just wanted to do more.

So, then I went back to the disabled group and started skiing with them. And, they all liked racing. So, that got me to start racing, as well.

Wilson: When you were with Barb and her family were you also at Snow Summit then?

St. John: I went with Barb and her family up to Mammoth Mountain … over Christmas vacation. That really pushed me to get better at skiing.

Wilson: I want to make sure that the explanation of the equipment is clear. What kind of adaptation did you need to be able to ski?

St. John: I had one ski on my left leg. I did not wear my prosthesis. My one ski was a regular ski. Then I had outriggers, which are the poles. They're poles with ski tips on the end, but they're really not poles. They're really crutches. They're really forearm crutches with ski tips on the ends. You can lean over on them and put weight on them unlike ski poles.

Wilson: And, throughout your career as an elite skier did you continue to use that set-up?

St. John: I skied on outriggers when I first started. I would lean over them. They call it three-tracking. You're making three tracks in the snow and you ski on two outriggers. Then I wanted to learn how to ski with regular ski poles. I mean it looked so much cooler to ski with regular ski poles. I saw other amputees doing it like Diana Golden. So, I made the effort to learn how to ski on regular ski poles. Interestingly enough, when you first get regular ski poles you try to lean on them just like the outriggers, but you'll rip your arm out because they

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

stick in the snow and it pulls in your arm. So, really I had to learn how to ski with nothing in my hands. So, I know how to ski on one ski with nothing in my hands and have to balance to do that. Then I could add poles, but not rely on them.

Wilson: Did you ever use your prosthesis and use two legs to ski, or were you always throughout your career on one leg?

St. John: No, it really wouldn't work on skis on two legs because I don't have a knee. If somebody has a knee, they can control that ski, but for me it would have just twisted out of control. There's no way to control it. So, I always skied on one, but then I skied with nothing in my hands. Then I skied with regular poles in my hands. And, then when I made the US team they said, "You really have to use outriggers because if you use poles, you're not going to finish enough races. With ski poles you look really pretty skiing, but just the tiniest mistake and you're going to crash. So, we want you to finish races. You win more races that you finish." So, I had to go back to outriggers. But, what's really neat about this is that once I had gotten the strength to ski with nothing in my hands and then to pole plant and to ski with regular poles, I could use outriggers completely differently. Instead of three-tracking and leaning on them, I could hold the outriggers up. If you look at the outriggers I competed with, they have red and blue paint on the cuffs because I was holding them up and hitting the gates. So, if you're holding your arm like this, the ski tip's way over there. It's not on the snow. I could cross over, hit the gates and ski. I could sometimes use the outriggers. So, it was kind of amazing because I started out skiing leaning over on these outriggers. I then learned to stand up, get the balance, have enough balance to ski with nothing. And, then when you add the outriggers, then you could use them as a counterweight. There really was some interesting things you could do. So, it was a completely different kind of skiing on the other side of skiing with poles.

Wilson: That puts a tremendous amount of pressure on one leg. That must have taken a long time to develop the strength to do it really well.

St. John: You have to have good balance. People always say that, but yes, you have to have a lot of strength and a lot of balance, but it does take some practice to do it.

Wilson: You figured out that you're really good at this. At what point did you make it your goal to compete in the Paralympics?

St. John: After I first started skiing, my first full winter of skiing, I had heard about going to national championships. And, at that time anybody could go to national championships. You just had to run a qualifying race at the beginning and then they would put you in the right group, but anybody could go. So, I thought, "I'm going to sign up. I want to go to national championships, but I should practice as much as I can beforehand." So, I went up almost every weekend. I practiced as much as I could. Then I went to my first national championships. And, I actually did pretty well. I just barely made the top qualification

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

group, just by a fraction. So, I ended up skiing with the top racers. And, I thought, "Wow. If I can do this, I could be good." So, that gave me the idea that I maybe could be one of the elite racers in the world, but I needed to get more practice. I didn't have coach before that. I needed to get a coach. It gave me incentive to say, "Do you know what? If I up my game, I could potentially be one of the best amputee skiers in the world."

Wilson: So, how did you go about becoming an elite skier? You went to Burke Mountain Academy. Is that correct?

St. John: Something that made a tremendous difference in my ability to up my game and get to an elite level of competition was going to Burke Mountain Academy. I had tried a number of other things that failed, where I was trying to get more coaching or I was trying to get sponsors. I did try a lot of things that didn't work. But … I heard about this school for ski racers, a high school for ski racers in Vermont. And, I put in an application. Now, I didn't have any money to pay for an elite boarding school in my family. But, I went ahead and applied anyway, which shows you something about my mentality. I said, "I'm going to try to raise the money." They accepted me into the school. And, I was showing them that I'm writing letters to this organization. I'm doing this. I'm trying to raise the money. And, I failed. By the time it was time for school to start I had raised $100. That was it.

So, I called up the headmaster Warren Witherell and I said, "I'm sorry I failed. I won't be able to come to your school." And, he said, "Come anyway." I'll never forget that, two words. Then I got a full scholarship to go into this elite ski racing school. I scraped together the money just to get an airline ticket there. I was so excited. This is my shot to really be a champion. I was the only person with a disability. I was the only one-legged person there. I was the only Black person there. And so, it was a real challenge. First day at school, I'm playing with the other kids, I fall off a ski simulator and broke my leg, my only ankle. Now, I'm in a cast ion my left leg and struggling. But, I can still do weightlifting. I can still go to some of my classes … I tried to keep up. Six weeks later I get out of that cast. I'm running across the soccer field and my artificial leg breaks in half. So, they had to send that back to LA. So, now I'm on crutches on the other leg. That's got to get repaired. It actually got lost in the mail for a week. Just crazy stories. But, I stuck it out and I got a lot stronger. Looking back I asked myself, "Why didn't I quit?" People said to me, "Why didn't you go home? You broke both your legs. You were struggling. You had no money. What were you doing?" And, I kept thinking at the time somebody would stop me – that the headmaster or my mother or somebody would say, "Look, you don't have a leg left to stand on." But, no adult stopped me. And, I guess I just wasn't going to stop myself. I think that's a powerful idea, that if you don't stop yourself, there's so much you can do. I just kept going and kept trying. And, eventually I was able to use Burke Mountain Academy to get the training I needed to really become good at working out, good at being an athlete, good at training, and become an international skier.

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

Wilson: I grew up in Vermont and now I live in Southern California. I imagine that that was quite a culture change. In addition to the broken legs, how did you find the transition? Were you able to handle that?

St. John: It was quite a culture shock going from Southern California to the backwoods of Vermont as a ski racer. I think in Southern California all the girls in school put on makeup every day and curled their hair and everything. And, Vermont the girls all, you know, pull their hair back and went outside. I think that they thought. "If you're putting on makeup every day, are you a streetwalker? What are you doing?" Not only that, being Black, my hair was frizzy. I was the only Black girl there and I didn't have the hair products that I needed, or the treatments that I needed. My hair kept getting frizzier and crazier and everything while I was there. Yeah, it was a huge culture shock.

Wilson: Burke Mountain, like a lot of ski academies, has a rather remarkable record of placing their graduates in elite universities. You went to Harvard and then became a Rhodes Scholar. Do you think your mother played more of a role in your education, or was it Burke Mountain Academy, or some combination?

St. John: Well, I was only at Burke Mountain Academy for senior year. I think most of what you're judged on … In fact, I got into Harvard early. It means I got into Harvard by October or something, or November, so I can't give too much credit to Burke Mountain Academy. I will tell you, though, that my mother got a phone call from Harvard asking, "Can you verify that she's for real because every year MIT makes up a certain amount of gag applications and we thought this could be one of them: the one-legged Black girl in the ski school from San Diego … We just wanted to check out if this is for real or this is a joke."

Wilson: That's funny. Can you describe a training day, not just a training day, but how there was a division between your schoolwork and then what you did to train to become an elite skier?

St. John: At Burke Mountain Academy?

Wilson: Yeah.

St. John: At Burke Mountain Academy half the school would ski in the morning and have classes in the afternoon. The other half of the school would do it the other way around. On weekends we would all pile into vans and go to a ski race together. I would compete in the regular two-legged ski circuit as well as. There was a rule that was made because of Diana Golden, who was a very famous one-legged skier. They had the Golden Rules that you could always ski first. The amputees could always go down first, which really helped.

There were no grades at Burke Mountain Academy, which was interesting. I think part of that was because there was so much pressure and so much competition in the skiing. You're getting grades. You're getting your FIS numbers. You're getting ski results all the

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

time. So, they didn't want to pit kids against each other in terms of academics as well. That was very freeing, though, the fact that there were no grades at Burke. I took French. I had never taken French before. I felt very free to try new things and just push myself really hard.

Wilson: What year did you graduate from Burke?

St. John: I graduated from Burke in 1982 and started at Harvard as a sophomore. I was able to have enough credits, AP credits, to be able to start Harvard as a sophomore, which I really only did because I was afraid that my family had so little money … I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to afford four years of college. I don't think it was a really good idea. Lots of Harvard students have AP tests and credit and they still take four years because it's a good education. But, I was so afraid of the financial part of it that I went ahead and took sophomore status. So, I had to finish at Burke. I spent the summer training on a glacier and then went straight to Harvard as a sophomore. I always put a lot of pressure on myself, I guess you can hear.

Wilson: How did you train for skiing when you were at Harvard? Or did you?

St. John: Well, I had trained all summer on a glacier. And, I thought, "That will give me a head start" and then got to Harvard. There was a Harvard ski team. So, I thought, "I'll train with the Harvard ski team." I started to do that, but I realized pretty rapidly that with the level of work they expected at Harvard that maybe it was going to be hard to do all the school work and be an elite ski racer at the same time. So, I made the decision to take time off. I went for one semester and then I took the second semester off and moved to Lake Tahoe and trained. Then I spent another summer on the glacier in Oregon training again as I had the summer previous. After that I moved to Colorado and trained in Colorado. And, then went to the Olympics. I had a winter, a summer, another winter and then went back to college after that.

Wilson: How did you support yourself during that time?

St. John: I worked in various odd jobs. I got sponsors. I was sponsored also by the National Brotherhood of Skiers and had met them during my senior year in high school. They would raise money and help defray some of my training expenses, but I always had jobs, too. On the glacier I worked in the gift shop. In Colorado I worked in a diner. I used to have to walk a mile to get to the diner to work my eight-hour shift. I always tried to pull together the resources to make it work. I didn't have Daddy Warbucks bankrolling me.

Wilson: Have you remained in touch with the National Brotherhood of Skiers? Are you involved with them still?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: I've remained in touch with different people in the organization, but I don't have a big relationship with them now. I can't say that I do.

Wilson: Did you ever go to one of the Summits?

St. John: I went to many of the Summits over the years. It was quite an inspirational experience.

Wilson: When several thousand Black skiers show up in Park City how does that work?

St. John: The National Brotherhood of Skiers is an amazing organization. I remember being in Park City at the start of the Summit. You just see the whole patio there at the base of the main chairlift, hundreds of Black people, all the chairlifts filled with Black people. I think for the average skier who shows up and looks around they're thinking, "What happened? Everyone's painted brown today." But, it's really exciting. When you think about it, you think about the kind of person who goes to the National Brotherhood of Skiers Summit. It's somebody who is pretty successful or they couldn't afford it, right. And, they're Black and they're skiing, so they are not the stereotypical Black person, right. They're not afraid of going outside their comfort zone and pushing themselves hard. It's a lot of really interesting people. I highly recommend it. You don't have to be Black to go to the Summit, right. Anybody can sign up and go. You're just going to meet a lot of really interesting people.

Wilson: Let's talk about the 1984 Paralympic Games. How did you qualify for the Games? How did you get on the team?

St. John: I went to Burke Mountain Academy and then went to Harvard and then took time off, trained in Lake Tahoe, and then went home and waited to hear results after national championships, made the team and then decided to go back to the glacier and train. Then [I] went to Colorado and trained with the team … Although when I say, "trained with the team," it sounds like, "Oh, you're training with the team." There was really … I had hired my own coach. I did my own thing. And occasionally, there was a week-long training thing with the team. It really … They didn't have that much of a robust structure.

The Olympics were in January, really early in the season. So, I went and competed. A week after the Olympics were over the next semester at Harvard was starting. So, I was back in school again for spring semester. So, things moved pretty fast.

Wilson: Where were nationals?

St. John: The year that I qualified for the US Paralympic Team the national championships were in Lake Tahoe at Squaw Valley.

Wilson: Who was your coach when you were doing the glacier training and you were training in Colorado?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: I trained with Mike Annett's summer training camp. They were the only group that had a camp running the entire summer. So, I got a job in the gift shop and then I signed up for his camp because I could train all summer long.

Wilson: You make the team. You go to Innsbruck. It's January 1984. What were the Winter Paralympics like at that time? Would you consider it a major event, or was it informal? I assume that it wasn't like London 2012. So, how was it different?

St. John: I qualified for the 1984 Paralympic team to go to Innsbruck, Austria, except at that time they hadn't actually coined the term Paralympics. They called it the World Winter Games for the Disabled, under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee. It was the first year it was under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee. Now, I was the third-ranked one-legged woman in the US and they only took three one-legged women from the US. So, I was glad to be going and proud to have my team jacket representing the United States of America. Sarajevo was where they were holding the regular Olympics. They had said, "Can you be able to host the World Winter Games for the Disabled." They were like, "I don't know. That sounds hard." So, Austria raised their hand and said, "We'll host it. No problem. We can do this. We got it."

So, we weren't in the same place as the regular Olympics so there was no Village. We were in B and B's. I basically was in a bed pushed up against another bed … Basically, I was sharing a bed with another woman on the team, Martha. For breakfast you go downstairs and it's a B and B and there's a continental breakfast. Here's a roll with some butter. Go ski, you know. We're like, "We can't ski on that. We need more food." So, they gave us cold cuts. It was not like being in the Olympic Village. When I tour the Olympic Village and they say, "We have masseuses and chiropractors and 25 different choices for nutritious meals," that is not what we had in our Olympic Village.

Wilson: Was there any media coverage? Were there any spectators?

St. John: There were spectators and media, but not from the US. The US media was not there. I have no media footage of me actually competing. I said I was sponsored by the National Brotherhood of Skiers. Over 30 members of the National Brotherhood of Skiers came to cheer me on, which kind of stands out. You know, 30 Black people in the Alps screaming back in 1984. My teammates said, "Bonnie, you have a really big family, don't you?" I said, "Yes, I do," because they were like my family that had helped get me there.

Wilson: Was your mother still alive then?

Wilson: My mother came to see me compete in the Olympics and it was amazing. You've got to understand my mom was a schoolteacher. And, she didn't always get it about sports. All the time that I had been training I took time off from to be a ski bum. She's kind of watching

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

and thinking, "What's she really doing and where's this going." When we finally got there and she saw all the hoopla, over 100 countries, all the flags, all the excitement, she sort of started to say, "OK, this seems like a good idea." And, when I finished the first run of the slalom I was in first place. I had the fastest time in the world after the first run of the slalom. My mother got so excited my brother had to roll her in the snow to cool her off … She would see a jogger going down the street and say, "Can't they do something constructive?" But, now all of a sudden she's thinking, "This is great. This is not just jogging. This is winning. I like winning." So, she got into the whole excitement of it.

Wilson: Let's talk a little bit about the competition. What events did you ski in?

St. John: I competed in the slalom, the giant slalom and the downhill race, and then there was a medal for overall performance as well. I'm wearing my medals. I won the bronze in the slalom, bronze in the giant slalom. I placed seventh in the downhill race, and then was awarded the silver medal that I'm wearing for overall performance. So, I was the second fastest woman in the world on one leg in 1984.

Wilson: How did they do the medals ceremony. Were they done all at once, or did you have three separate ceremonies?

St. John: There were separate ones. They would have a medal ceremony after each race. So, I was in the medal ceremony for the two bronze medals that I won, but I missed the ceremony for the silver medal, which was the biggest. It was the culmination of the whole event. It was the one that was a really big deal. I was stuck on the hill with my sister. My sister is not a very good skier and she couldn't get down the hill. And, I didn't go.

I felt a little bad about that. Later they said, "You're the first African American to win a Winter Olympic medal, not even just for skiing but a Winter Olympic medal, either Olympics or Paralympics. Because I wasn't there somebody else had to go and accept my medal for me … I was very young. I was 19 years old. In retrospect I understand that it wasn't just about me. I guess I should have abandoned my sister and gone down the hill and represented. I mean somebody else … the ski patrol could have helped her or somebody else could have helped her. I really didn't understand the significance of being there.

Wilson: Was there an Opening and a Closing Ceremony?

St. John: I believe there was and I'm not sure that I participated in Opening Ceremonies. But, that final medal ceremony would have been part of the Closing Ceremony, which I was not there [at] either.

Wilson: What were the other sports that people competed in at these Winter Games? In addition to Alpine skiing what other things did they have?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: That's a great question. I know there was cross country skiing. I believe there was hockey, but because, again, there was no Village. Everybody was spread out. I was in a B and B and I just got to my own events. And again, not going to Opening Ceremonies there was a lot of confusion. I was just kind of trying to keep myself organized and keep myself performing well. So, I didn't have a lot of bandwidth to know what else was going on. I was talking about this. I was at the reunion for Olympians and Paralympians, and was talking to somebody else about this, about knowing what other people were doing and understanding what other athletes were doing. And, I said, "You just didn't know because not only were we not in one Village together, there was no coverage. So, it wasn't like I could go on the Internet and hear how all my teammates did today. There was no way for me to get that information. It wasn't covered in the newspaper. It was a lot harder to get that kind of information back then. Nowadays I think the team is much more … can be much more cohesive.

Wilson: Was the number of different events and number of disabilities represented at these Games much less than it is now? For example, were there blind athletes and wheelchair athletes?

St. John: There were blind athletes. There were wheelchair athletes. There were a wide variety of disabilities. I think the number of athletes is greater now. So, the US would just be bigger. We'd have more people on it. I was talking a few years back about totally blind. And, they said, "We didn't have any totally blind skiers. We had partially sighted skiers, which is a different category." I said, "Why don't we have any totally blind skiers." And, somebody said, "Well, that's really hard [laughs]." But, I think we do have a much more comprehensive, larger team now than we did back then.

Wilson: Shortly after the Games you return to the United States and you start school again at Harvard. Is that correct?

St. John: Within a week after the Paralympics that I competed in I was back at school at Harvard. I'd been off for a year. I'd been wearing nothing but sweats and training. It was pretty much a shock to the system to leave the Olympics and then, you know, be back in school. Quite honestly, I struggled a bit. I wasn't getting the best grades. It was hard, but I went out and I got some extra help. I got some tutoring and I was able to turn it around and get back to getting A's in school.

It's funny. It's a life lesson whether I'm in skiing or I'm in school, wherever I am, not everything just comes easy. You have to get coaches. You have to do what it takes to be able to be at the elite levels in competition. You have to work hard, get coaching, get up when you fall down.

Wilson: When you were competing you ended up second in the overall. Who finished first and how did that person beat you?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: The first race that I was in at the Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria, was the slalom race. And, after the first run, I was number one in the world. I had the fastest time in the slalom. It takes two runs combined time to actually take home the medal. I went back up to the top and I'm waiting my turn to do it again. A few women go down ahead of me and they radio back up that they're crashing. The second run is never the same as the first. On the second run there's a dangerous icy spot. As I come up to the gate and it's my turn to start I'm thinking, "I don't have to do anything heroic. I would love to win the gold medal. If these other women are crashing, I just need to not crash, and I maybe could win the gold medal." So, I get up to the gate. The race official says, "Go." I break the timing wand. I'm hitting the red and the blue poles. I get down to where I can see the finish line and I think, "I've made it. I'm going to win the gold medal." And, that's when I hit this dangerous, icy spot. I tried to hold on to my edge, but I'm only skiing on one leg. I can't do it. I fall on my rear end. I was so disappointed. I would love to have given up and disappeared and given up at that point. My mind was so disappointed that I couldn't win gold, but my physical training was always to finish. I grabbed my equipment. I got over the finish line and when the dust cleared I was in third place. So, I won the bronze medal that I'm wearing and got to stand on the winners podium, US flag waving, all that.

But, the woman who won the gold in that race, I beat her in the first run. When nothing went wrong I was the fastest slalom skier. In the second run I fell, but so did she. It wasn't that she didn't fall in the second run. So, how did she beat me? She couldn't ski faster than me. She fell. She got up faster. So, she won the gold medal in that race for being the quicker-getter-upper.

Many years later I was quoted on a Starbucks cup. And, the quote said, "People fall down. Winners get up, but sometimes the gold medal winner is just the person who gets up the fastest." That was a life lesson to take away from that … It's not always about just being the fastest, but being able to get up quickly even in the midst of competition and get back in the game.

Wilson: You graduate from Harvard. You become a Rhodes Scholar. How did that application process work?

St. John: It's senior year in college that you typically apply for the Rhodes Scholarship.

Wilson: Is this something that you had wanted to do for a long time or had this come to you in your senior year? And, what was the application process like?

St. John: I had heard about the Rhodes Scholarship somewhere along the line and I thought it was a great thing to do. I don't think I fully understood how prestigious it was or how competitive it was because I was like, "Oh yeah, I want to apply for it." And, other people thought I was sort of arrogant, you know, saying, "Yeah, I want to for the Rhodes Scholarship." They

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

were like, "OK." Like so many things I just bumbled in and did it. But, I wanted to prepare for it and I tried to learn about what it was and put in the best possible application. A funny thing that happened was at Harvard they had a lot of people that were supposed to help you with your application. It was through your house. The people live in 12 different houses. In my house they didn't want to help me. So, I didn't get the help that some of the other people got.

Wilson: Why was that?

St. John: They said it was because they didn't know whether I had gotten the interview or not. Everybody puts in their applications and then if you get an interview, you were supposed to get help through your house. California didn't notify us until the last minute. I really didn't learn of my interview until like three days before I had to be there. So, I didn't get the help. But, it's one of those things that you wonder, "Is it because I'm Black." So, there was me and another Black gentleman in my same house. We both got … were applying through California and didn't get notification until the last minute. It's just one of those things that you don't know. Did I not get helped because I was Black? Other people got help. You know, it's one of those messy things.

Wilson: Where was the interview?

St. John: The interview was in California. I'm from California. So, I applied to the Rhodes committee in California. Like I said, I didn't get notified that I had an interview until three days beforehand. So, I had to buy a ticket to fly back to California to do this interview at the very last minute. They don't care if you can't make it. They invited you. You can come or you don't come. And, I didn't have any money. It was actually another person, who was also Black, who was applying to California, who lent me the money to get my ticket because I said, "I'm going to wait. My mom is going to wire me some money and I'll buy a red-eye ticket and I'll go out there at the last minute." He was like, "You're going to be too tired. That's going to ruin it. Don't do that. Here, I'm going to lend you the money to be able to do it." He went to the same interview and I ended up beating him. He didn't get the Rhodes Scholarship. That's an interesting story, a fellow Black student, who fronted me the money and actually ended up not winning. That says a lot.

Wilson: What kinds of questions did they ask you in the interview?

St. John: They ask you … The theme of the Rhodes Scholarship is fighting the world's fight, is that they want to give this scholarship to people who are going to help fight the world's fight, make the world a better place, be a leader in the world and make a positive difference in the world. So, they're kind of looking at hearing, "How are you going to do that? What have you learned? What use of the resources have you made?" There's another theme, though, with Rhodes Scholarship interviews that they say, "They're going to keep asking you questions until eventually you get one that you can't answer." They kind of want to see

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

how you handle yourself when you're in over your head. too. So, some of that goes on. But, I thought a lot about that, about wanting to be able to make a difference and how I thought that I could do that. I think I've been able to do that. I think I've been able to use the resources that I was given and make a difference for people with disabilities, make a difference for women leaders in corporate America, make a difference for minorities.

Wilson: When you eventually ended up at Oxford did you do coursework there with your future in mind or was it more about an abstract, "I'm going to learn about literature, and if it ever helps me, great, if it doesn't, great?"

St. John: It's funny because I started out thinking that. Like, "This is a chance to go to Oxford and to study something completely different, just maybe read great books and do something different than what I did in college." I majored in politics in college. And, I thought, "Maybe I will do literature." I looked at that and I guess I realized that I wasn't really qualified to do that. One of the majors you can do is study Beowulf. And, I'm like, "This is really not going to work for me." So, I ultimately did do politics. I did a research degree in politics and was researching subcontracting of services. It sounds so arcane. I was doing politics and economics, subcontracting of services in Britain and Japan. I had done my undergraduate thesis on Japanese financial markets as well. So, it … Ultimately I did build on what I had done in the past. But, just being in England and learning about the English system and connecting with the other Rhodes Scholars I think was a big part of the broadening experience. Being in England and looking back at the US, being able to sort of see it from a distance, certainly provides you with some perspective and a chance to really reflect on who you want to be and what you want to do.

Wilson: Can I nail down the chronology of what you did? So, you went to the Winter Games. You go back to Harvard. You finish up there. You apply for the Rhodes Scholarship. You go to England. Did you at any point contemplate continuing to ski, or after the Games were over did you know that that was the end of your competitive skiing career, or your elite competitive skiing career anyway?

St. John: When I finished competing at the Olympics I wanted to continue ski racing at Harvard. And, I joined the Harvard ski team and I rearranged my schedule to try to be able to get four days a week skiing while I was going to school. And, it was very hard. At the end of that first winter … The Olympics were in January. I skied with the Harvard ski team all the way through March. I realized that if I tried to ski while being at Harvard, I wasn't going to get a good education and I wasn't going to be a good skier. I was going to do both badly. And, I decided I really needed to give up skiing and focus on my education. I remember I was sitting by the Charles River. It was springtime, you know, the end of the ski season, and just crying and just feeling that this is the end of this part of my life.

To be a finely honed instrument … I'd been skiing five days a week at least for years and suddenly to say, "I'm going to have to give that up and really focus on my studies," it was a

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

hard decision to make. But, I didn't like doing two things badly. And so, I really decided to do that. I finished out my degree and then won the Rhodes Scholarship and had the chance to go to England, not a lot of great skiing in England. So, knew I wasn't going to continue my skiing there and kept going from one thing to another. But, yeah, a lot of other ski racers who go to the Olympics continue to compete and continue to go to other Olympics, but I did realize that I had to make a decision. Was I going to going to go Harvard and finish or was I going to keep skiing? Now, had I chosen a school like Dartmouth or Middlebury, it might have been more possible to do both at the same time. But, partly because I chose Harvard, it … And, I didn't necessarily know that when I was choosing Harvard. I think it was a little naïve. You know, the little girl from San Diego didn't necessarily understand the physics of all this, but I'm glad I chose Harvard and I went. It was a difficult decision, but I was able to do that, do the Rhodes Scholarship, and then come back, get a job, and get married. So, I didn't really have a chance to go back into elite sport fulltime.

Wilson: Let's talk about coming back and getting a job. When you finished at Oxford you were then ready to essentially start your professional career. What was your first real job not working in a gift shop?

St. John: My first real job was with IBM. I was excited about that because I was able to learn about computers. I knew computers were the future. I had learned how to program computers when I was 12 and had always liked computers. So, I was intrigued by this idea. Then sales, I was in sales for IBM. And, I knew learning about sales was for me the engine of growth. My major was in economics. So, I was always interested in business and how does the economy work. So, I was thrilled to work for IBM because I got a gold-plated education in sales as well as learning about computers.

Wilson: How long were you with IBM?

St. John: I stayed with IBM for about two years. Initially got the training, worked with them in sales, and then President Clinton got elected and some of my friends were working in the Clinton Administration and asked me if I would put my resume in and come to work. I put my resume in and interviewed for the job and ended working for the National Economic Council.

Wilson: That ended when?

St. John: Ninety-seven. I was working '96, '97 in the Clinton Administration.

Wilson: You've written several books. When did you write your first book? Was it early in your business career or did it come later?

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

St. John: I actually put together my first book proposal to write a book and send in the proposal in to the publisher while I was still working at IBM. I got in touch with a publisher who was very interested, but then I ended up getting the job in the White House. So, I said to the publisher, "I'm too busy to write a book now. Let me just work in the White House." When I was done with that went back to them and said, "OK, now I want to work on the book." So, I ended up having to pace things.

Wilson: What was the book about?

St. John: I wanted to write a book that was motivational and inspire people to reach their goals. I had read motivational books and went to motivational speakers when I was younger. And, it made a difference for me to aim higher and to think about what are the mechanics of exceeding your limitations. So, I wanted to share those kinds of ideas. A number of the books I've written have been basically along those themes, too … How can you go beyond your limitations?

Wilson: Following your stint at the White House what did you do next?

St. John: I left the White House. I got married and decided to work from home and write a book and be a speaker and start to raise my daughter. I figured being a new mom I could spend some time at home and try to start this business as a speaker and a writer. If it didn't work out, I could always go back and get another job, but I would have had a little bit of time at home with my daughter and so that would be OK. Well, here I am. My daughter is 25 now and I'm still working in my own business doing training, speaking, writing books.

Wilson: Did you form a company that was behind your speaking career? And also, you seem to have an awful lot of videos on YouTube. Do you know how many you have up there?

St. John: [Laughs] No idea. My company is Blue Circle Leadership. I'm really proud of what we've accomplished as Blue Circle Leadership, that we are providing training particularly for women in leadership for companies like American Express and JPMorgan Chase, Cigna, PwC. Just really proud of the opportunities that we provide. Just as we've been talking about how I had help along the way from organizations, different coaches, who enabled me go beyond my limitations, being able to provide the resources for women in corporate America particularly multicultural women or women in tech … We have a variety of different programs that give them the scaffolding to enlist advocacy, to understand some of the barriers, to look at some of the literature and the research that's been done on what holds women back and be able to overcome some of those barriers. So, it's a different form of competition. It's not on snow. It's in the workplace, but helping women climb their own mountains in a different way has been a real mission for Blue Circle Leadership. And, it's not just me. We have a team of people. My husband Allen Haines works with me. We have about 10 different people who work in sales, social media, coaching, training. Most of our programs are done virtually, which allows us to have a wide scope. We even have

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

people from Taiwan and Korea that participate in some of our programs. Having people that help run the technology and run the course and help facilitate the course is terrific.

Wilson: Do you have a sense of how many personal appearances you make in a year?

St. John: Perhaps as many as 100 appearances in a year giving speeches, but I'm also in other meetings. I'm teaching virtually. I may be teaching a virtual class, and then going out and giving a speech in the same city. I teach a lot of virtual classes from hotel rooms. I've taught from Rio. When I was at the Rio Olympics I was teaching a virtual class for Aetna. Actually taught a virtual class today. Actually, we had a virtual graduation for one of our classes today, which I did in a hotel room and then came over here to shoot this.

Wilson: You have, in addition to having business career and a career as a writer, you have also continued to be in the Paralympic Movement. I believe two presidential administrations have asked you to play a role in the US team. Can you talk about that?

St. John: I've always felt it's important to be active in the movement, the Olympic and Paralympic Movement. I even understood when I was competing that by raising the bar, by identifying resources, by hiring coaches, by showing what Paralympians could do, I was helping to move the movement forward. I always made a point after that to get involved in things that the USOC was doing. I would volunteer to help. They have a mentorship program called Flame. So, I would volunteer to help with that. When the Olympics were in 2000 I flew myself out there and got a place to stay. Just volunteered to help [with] different things with the Olympic Committee. Paralympians didn't get as much visibility early on. It took a long time for us to get the recognition that we have today. So, that was something that I felt was important, that if I was present with the US … It used to be called the US Olympic Committee. Now, it's called the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. That change has been made recently. But, by showing up and being helpful and being part of the mix, I'm helping my country, but I think I was also helping the Paralympics to get the visibility over time.

When I went back to the … I was on the presidential delegation. So, I got nominated for a couple of different presidential delegations, one for Vancouver, one to Rio. But, just like, for example, being at the Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, in 2010, as part of the presidential delegation, I was almost in tears at Opening Ceremonies because looking at how far the Paralympics had come. The Opening Ceremonies they did was fantastic. They had a lot of disabled performers in the show. They really showcased what the capabilities of Paralympians are. But, it was the same kind of fantastic show that is put on for Olympics Opening Ceremonies that was put on for Paralympics Opening Ceremonies. And, then to see the Village that the … The Paralympic Village, you know, just has all the resources that the Olympic Village does. The athletes get three garbage bags full of … I think they them put them in plastic bags, three plastic bags full of clothes, jackets and gloves and pants and all the sponsored things that they get. When I went to compete I got one jacket

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

and one sweater. The gloves I was wearing when I competed were mismatched gloves from the lost and found. So, to see that today's athletes are getting the kind of resources and treatment, maybe not equal to the Olympians, maybe they still don't get quite as much, but it's much more comparable. And, the global visibility, the celebration that they get, the attention … That plays out. Little kids today now are much more likely to cheer for a disabled athlete or to know what that means. It's just really exciting how far it's come. So, I am proud that I was able to play a role in the early development of the movement and by my hard work raise the bar. By showing and participating in activities, advocating for the Paralympics, I hope that I did play a small part in growing the movement.

Wilson: I think the movement has grown in so many ways, not only in terms of the treatment of athletes, but the perceptions of the athletes and the desire of sponsors to be associated with that. Have you been involved at all in either fundraising or seeking sponsorship for the Paralympics?

St. John: No, I'm really not involved in fundraising or seeking sponsorship for the Paralympics, but I am really excited that you see now Paralympic athletes included in the ads for the sponsors and the sports that you see. Now it's required for the sponsors of the US Olympic Team to sponsor both Olympics and Paralympics. That was not required back when I was competing. So, the equity that's there … Again, I hesitate to say, "equity" because I know it's not equal, but it's just so much better. And, the opportunity for the athletes to compete and have support has continued to grow. And, the integration … When you go to the Olympic Training Center now you see pictures on the wall of Olympians and Paralympians who've achieved great things. There's a lot more recognition for the achievement.

Wilson: At the time it was called the USOC. The USOC several years ago seems to have made a strategic decision that they were going treat the Paralympics as a serious competition and not just an excuse to be inspired by people with disabilities competing. At least that's my reading of it. Do you see it the same way?

St. John: Well, there was a law passed. I don't know what year. We could look it up. There was a law passed in Congress to say that the Paralympics is officially part of our US Olympic effort. So, the USOC, which is now the USOPC, was charged with fielding our US team. Now, as with anything, there was some tension with that and it took a number of years. At one point the way it was handled was that the US Olympic Committee got sponsors for the Olympians. And, say they got Coke. They would say to the Paralympians, "You can't have Coke because that's our sponsor. You've got to go get your own sponsor. By the way, you can't have Pepsi because that would embarrass Coke. You can't have Coke or Pepsi. Now, go find your own sponsor." And, that was actually the way it was handled for a little while. So, we had to get through some bumps. Now the way it is handled is whoever the corporate sponsors are for the US team are the sponsors for the Olympics and the Paralympics. We've come a long way. But, it's not just in the last few years. This has been going on for 10, 15 years that it's taken. It's a long journey. Some of it was legal processes

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

that had to happen. We all like to think that people will just come around and everybody will see it the same way. But, it's not an easy process. As a person who is Black it is an interesting parallel for me with the Civil Rights Movement. You would like to think that everybody would just come around and do it in a nice way, but sometimes it's difficult to get to more equality and more fairness.

Wilson: Some of the other interviews that we've done in this series have really underscored that point. Scot Hollonbeck and Tatyana McFadden both had to resort to lawsuits, legislative fights to achieve what they wanted to achieve and compete in an organized and semi-elite way. I'm talking about in high school sports now. I think you're right. It's not really something that has happened quickly or necessarily rationally. It's not like everybody all of a sudden said, "Great, let's celebrate Paralympians now.

St. John: But, we have reached an amazing place. For me, having competed in the 1984 Paralympics, to see the breadth of growth and how far we've come over the years … Yeah, there's been some ups and downs, And, no, not everything is easy, but the arc is long. It bends in the right direction. We're in a much better place than we were back then. I'm proud to have been part of the movement and a part of the change. I think it's just going to continue to get better as long as we stay focused on it and working on it together.

Wilson: On that note, as you know, Los Angeles will be hosting the 2028 Paralympics. How do you envision that arc continuing to grow? Obviously, this is something that creates opportunities for the organizers here. How would you like to see the 2028 Paralympics be presented and how would you like to see athletes perceived nine years down the road.?

St. John: If I could wave a magic wand, which I don't think I can, but if I could, I would say that it would be great if the Paralympics came first or they were blended together in a way. What happens is that when the regular Olympics are first, people tend to watch it all and then they tune out. They don't necessarily watch the Paralympics. I hope this doesn't sound wrong, but it's almost like if they could be the warm-up act, that would be nice. I think it would be better received. Or, blended together more. Maybe, that sounds crazy, but some of the things we're doing now … If somebody told me it would be called the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, if somebody had told me that in the '90s, I would have said they were crazy. So, maybe it's not crazy to think in 2028 maybe the Olympics and Paralympics events will be more blended together. Who knows?

Wilson: They have a US Olympic and Paralympic Museum as well.

St. John: Yes, that's just kicking off. It's not quite finished yet, but it will be. I'm very excited about that. I think it's really healthy for us to be able to celebrate Olympics and Paralympics together. It's all about elite sport, and really hard work and discipline. Some of the stories that you get out of Paralympics are at least as exciting and even more so with the obstacles that they to overcome. It's all about just really great athletics.

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

Wilson: Let's finish this up by talking a little bit more about what you personally are doing right now in your life. Let's talk about the present day and recent years. One of the ways in which you have stayed connected to the adaptive sports movement, I know, is with working with people who were affected by the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Can you talk about what happened there, how you got involved and what it is that you're doing with the people?

St. John: My heart really went out to the victims of the bomb at the Boston Marathon because so many of them were amputees. There was a bomb. There was a lot of shrapnel that went out at a low level. So, a lot of the victims became amputees. I really wanted to help if I could. I ended up going to the hospital where they were and meeting with a number of the newly minted amputees. Later, I think about six or eight months later, many of them were invited as guests to come to the big convention for disabled skiing. I had stayed in touch with some of the victims of the bombing and some of the people I had been able to help, and was able to actually ski with some of them in Breckenridge later.

One gentleman is a below-the-knee amputee and he had been a big skier beforehand. When I met with him he was so excited to really get a vision that he was going to still be able to ski and enjoy skiing. To see him go out and be able to ski at that event was just incredible. You could barely tell because, again, he's a below-the-knee amputee. He skis with two skis and you can hardly tell. He looks like he's doing it … The smile on his face, to see that he could get back to normal was just incredible. But, the trauma of a bombing … You know, I lost my leg as a child and that has its own challenges, but the trauma of going through that bombing and what it did to his family was really hard. I'm glad he was able to get back to a place of joy, but some of those scars I know you're going to carry for the rest of your life.

Wilson: I know that one of your current projects is the book you're working on with your husband Allen Haines called "Micro-Resilience." Can you tell us what micro-resilience is? … I assume that this in some way ties in with your career as an athlete, as well?

St. John: Resilience has certainly been an important theme all my life. As a company Blue Circle Leadership started to really do a lot of research on it back in 2011. So, my husband Allen Haines and I wrote a book. And, we coined the term micro-resilience and titled the book "Micro-Resilience" because what we learned in the work we were doing was that by focusing on little tiny micro bits of resilience every day you could make powerful changes in how we live and how we address problems. We contrasted that to macro-resilience, which is getting enough sleep, exercising, eating right, the things we all know we should do, but you have to do those over time to get the benefits. So, we said, "Great. Do as well as you can on those, but let's teach you about micro-resilience." So, there are little things that you can do that benefit you the same day. If you are taking small breaks, if you're drinking more water, if you are exercising, but like exercising a little bit just so that you can be

A Paralympian's Oral History Bonnie St. John

smarter afterwards … There are studies that show 20 minutes of walking can help you to make better decisions for hours afterwards. So, [it's] not just the habit of exercising over time, but injecting exercise into your day when you know you need to do some important thinking work. We looked at these micro-activities that you can inject into your life that help you make better decisions, that help you stop getting triggered by your fight or flight mechanisms. We're working with a wide range of companies on how they can bring that into their culture to be able to sustain more of the intensity that we have. As a culture we are just driving people harder and harder. The pace of change is accelerating. So, working with companies to use these evidence-based practical hacks that help people to be more resilient on a day-to-day basis has been some really powerful work that we do with top companies around the world.

Wilson: Is the primary audience for this book people in corporate setting, or private individuals?

St. John: Oh, corporate. We're mainly doing corporate work, working with groups of people. A lot of times we're trying to impact culture … Individuals can get the book or the book on tape and they can use some of the hacks in their life, but where you get the really powerful results is when people are doing it as teams or doing it in their culture and really helping everybody to move forward.

Wilson: Thank you very much for your time. Good luck with your future endeavors.

St. John: Thank you. This is a great project. Thank you for including me in it.