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A true, almost unknown, inspirational story

Francisco Miraval

I recently read the story of a man, Robert, with multiple talents. He was an outstanding athlete, golfer, lawyer, and sports journalist. And in all those areas, he was so talented that more than once he won national awards.

First in high school and then in college, he practiced wrestling. He became the captain of the college team and won more than 50 matches. He was so good that he won an award as “the ideal student athlete.”

Robert eventually graduated from the School of Law at the University of Pennsylvania and became a lawyer. He practiced law the rest of his life, but he was also a good golfer, so good that he was elected as president of one of the leading associations of golfers in the country.

Robert was also a sports journalist. He worked for several years as sport commentator at a radio station in Philadelphia and he (not surprisingly) won an award for his work. In his free time, he liked to swim and to fish. And for many years he was also very active, even as candidate, in the Democrat Party.

Even before going to college, he began to write for publication. Some of his articles later appeared in books and magazines.

Any person able to do well one of the many things Robert did would probably be immediately recognized nationwide. Few people, however, can become athletes, golfers, writers, journalists, politicians, and lawyers at the same time and be so good that they receive national awards.

Robert is real. He was Robert G. Allman (1918-1994). His story is inspirational enough but that’s not the end of the story, because we need to say that Robert was blind since he was 4. He wrestled his opponents without seeing them, he played golf without seeing the holes, and he talked about sports without seeing the games. And in the evenings (not a joke), he sold insurance.

Many people (including me) would be happy to be recognized as an expert in just one of the activities Allman practiced. In 1952, Allman wrote: “All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them one at a time.” And he did it, he said, because there was no room in his life for “the bitterness of failure.”

What inspired Allman? Honesty, friendship, humility, goodness. Above all, his belief “in the existence of a higher nobility for humans to strive for”.

What usually inspires us? The number of “Likes” we have in Facebook. Instant gratification as soon as possible. Material things. Being always near of a phone smarter than us. Perhaps that’s why our lives, unlike Allman’s, are a bitter failure. 

Allman suggested many “seeing” people are in fact “blinder” than he was because those persons can’t “see” their own limitations.

I wonder how many things we are unable to see and how much courage is needed to open our eyes to the true reality and stop living a life of conformism.

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