Special Olympian tops at race walking BY KEN GOZE
STAFF WRITER
Special Olympics has always been about focusing on people's abilities rather than their limitations. And as a 20-year-old track and field athlete at the top of his game, Gary Berliant of Wilmette was headed for a tough real-world test of that philosophy.
NEW TRIER GRADUATE
Driven by a tumor too small to show up on an MRI, the pituitary gland at the base of his brain quietly started pushing an entire system of hormones dangerously out of balance. Within months, Berliant was hospitalized with a condition that had swelled his face and body with 40 pounds at the same time it wasted his muscles and weakened his bones.
Surgeries brought the disease under control, but with running and jumping out of the question for the foreseeable future, Berliant, a 2001 New Trier High School graduate, started shopping around for a new event and figured he could at least walk. With three state speed walking championships since then, it's clear he can walk just fine. He defended his title in Normal in July, and he wants to break into national competition.
"Just by accident, he got into this speed walking, and we didn't know he would take this to a whole other level," said Norman Berliant, Gary's father. "He does it faster than a lot of people run, but that just happened out of circumstance."
Lew's club
When he's not working his job in recycling at New Trier High School or working out at Lifetime Fitness in Skokie, Berliant trains alongside a group of two dozen athletes who have managed to stick together with their former special ed teacher, Lew Goldstein, many years after leaving school. Goldstein retired in 2003, but continues to lead an informal club which revolves around sports but also serves as a social network and alumni club.
With the track season over for now and an upcoming boccie ball tournament, Berliant kept off the track at New Trier's Winnetka Campus, but it's clear his sinewy sprinter's build wasn't made by playing a lawn game. The idea of speed walking is to get as fast a stride as possible without breaking into a run, and it requires its own kind of coordination and walking style. Goldstein said Berliant has mastered that transition. At about five and a half feet, Berliant doesn't have a long stride, but he has a high turnover and the ability to keep up the pace at 100 or 400 meters.
"We think Gary, if not the best in the United States, is one of the top three," Goldstein said. "Nobody comes within half a lap of him."
At the Thursday practice last week, Berliant said he's staying off the leg for now and working on boccie ball. Rolling the green and red wooden balls on a grass field takes work for aim and distance.
"I like this game a lot. Throwing the ball and being with friends. It takes a lot of practice," Berliant said.
As they line up their shots, clouds threaten a late afternoon rain, and something about that drives the flies wild, buzzing and sometimes biting despite a strong breeze.
Diagnosis
Norman Berliant said his son's physical setbacks were caused by Cushing's Syndrome, which results from overproduction of cortisol, a hormone which is needed to balance many body functions and help it cope with stress, but which can cause severe problems in high amounts. It's rare, affecting 10 or 15 people out of every 1 million, and most of them are female. It wasn't the first thing doctors looked for in an otherwise healthy young man, but his increasingly round face and skin changes gave them clues, and he was diagnosed in 2002, the spring after he graduated from New Trier.
He needed surgery first on his adrenal glands to cut off the source of the extra hormone, and then a procedure through his sinuses on the pituitary tumor. That solved the crisis, but he now must take several medications for life. He's also working to replace bone strength with exercise and a medication usually taken by older women. It was a frightening setback, but one which also opened a door for him.
"This one negative led to race walking. He never would have gotten into it because let's face it, it looks strange, and it did, but he's taken it to another level," Norman Berliant said.
On the team that Goldstein and volunteers work with, the athletes, like those at any level, find their best events. Those who stick with it and practice get better, and some excel. They work around a variety of learning disabilities and physical limitations, but they want to participate in life as much as anyone else, Goldstein said.
Those who can't do a certain event find another one and help with organizing. Some drive others to events. Several can be heard talking about partnerships for doubles competition, and others give each other the kind of grief that only longtime friends tolerate. Some of "Lew's kids" are now pushing middle age, and a few can remember a trip to England in the mid-1980s. Most have jobs, and Goldstein considers it a mark of success that he has to schedule outings around work and other activities.
"It's been fun watching these guys grow up and have a life," Goldstein said.
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