Tenley Albright Interview (page: 5 / 5) Olympic Gold Medal Figure Skater	Print Interview

It is extraordinary that one should be so accomplished in two entirely different disciplines. It seems that's less likely today than it ever was. When you look at the world today, and particularly the world as expressed through sports, do you see differences? What sorts of differences?

Tenley Albright: If you look at people who have had an interest, whether it is collecting insects, or whether it's doing a sport, growing up, very often you find they don't just stop there. They have developed a capacity to be deeply involved with something, carry it through, to try hardest at it, and to accept the challenge of doing the best they can. I think when someone has started to work on something, if they have been successful, for instance, as a top athlete it makes more sense to me that of course they would apply the same things they used in their athletics to something else. I think it's a waste if they don't.

There are lots of people who have been football heroes, basketball heroes, who have gone on and given of themselves. Look at Mickey King. She was the first woman diving coach at the Air Force Academy. She was very involved and encouraging the young Olympic hopefuls after she won her own gold medal. And there are all sorts of people who have done it. I wish I could remember where I read it, but I read a study of figure skating champions who went into medicine. There are a number. David Jenkins, who was Olympic champion, is a gastroenterologist. Mischa Petkevich, who was our national champion, went on to be a Rhodes scholar. I do think that what you learn from applying yourself to a sport, and really applying yourself, will hold in good stead for whatever you do. So go ahead and have fun with your sport. Don't worry about whether you have decided exactly what you want to do for your so-called career.

It seems that there are fewer people in this decade, accomplished in sports, who choose to pursue excellence in other areas as well. Is this an illusion?

Tenley Albright: I don't think we've followed people long enough yet to see if the ones in the last five or ten years who have succeeded and excelled in their sport are going to apply that to their next career. We should follow them; we should watch them. I think they will. After all, do we know how many of the musical hits right now are going to last twenty years? Not quite. I bet if we keep track, we will find that the athletes in the Olympics, these winter games coming up this year, in world championships in every sport--Tae Kwon Do to table tennis, to every sport we can think of--will take what they have learned through their sport and apply it some way. Even if it's applying it to how they compete with each other in business or anything else they do. It's a tough thing.

We are told that we should get in there and compete, and try to beat our competitors, and that's a very tough thing to deal with. After all, very often they are our friends. Why do we want to beat them? That's not the point. If you look back and think of any race you've been in, or anything else, stop and think. Were you trying to beat that other runner only, or were you really trying to see what you could do, and beat your own time and see how good you were and perhaps using other runners to measure yourself?

I think that's the way it is, and that's the way I had to look at it, because it was against my philosophy to get out on the ice to see if I could beat anybody. In fact, I remember clearly one time when we were in competition, when I didn't really feel I had skated my personal best. It is an awful feeling, and I realized at that time that what I needed was to feel that I had prepared as well as I could for the competition. Although I never felt totally prepared, even five seconds before it, I always felt I should do more until I actually got out on the ice of that competition. But for me, it was seeing what I could do compared to what I had done, or what I had in my mind that I should be able to do. That's what counted for me.

Your daughters skated but did not compete. It must have required some thought as to how to handle that with your daughters, your having excelled to such a degree. Did that require some attention, or was it just a natural part of the family?

Tenley Albright: I have three daughters. They still come and skate on the outdoor ponds with me. I found that putting skates on them when they were really little slowed them down. If I was over at the rink and they were on the ice too, it made it an awful lot easier to keep track of them. They all had fun with it. One of them in particular. They all took part in a few of the little competitions, or the ice shows, when they could put on all sorts of make-up and step in the ice shows with their friends when they were really little.

One of them went on to compete in local competitions, and is on her 8th or gold figure skating test. It's been fun for me to see that they enjoyed skating, but I don't think that it should be a need from us that our children do the same sport. One of them happens to be good in many sports, and I sometimes think, "Oh, they come too easily to her. They were never all that easy for me." But each individual finds his or her own different path and, as a mother, I feel it's for me to encourage whatever that path is and, lots of times, it's been interesting to me when it's something I couldn't do.

Could you tell us something about your cancer research?

Tenley Albright: I've been very motivated during my years in surgery to find some way so that after I have operated on a patient for cancer, I could say "I know I've removed all the cancer." Or else, be honest with them and be able to say "I know that there is some left, even if we can't see it, therefore you should have a certain kind of treatment." There hasn't been a clear scientific way to know that. And I was very excited when I first heard Eric Fossel, who was trained in chemistry and biochemistry and biophysics, present his work on detecting the presence of malignancy simply by looking at blood plasma. And I starting working with him, began to think immediately, when I heard him speak, of the clinical applications, and the things that it could help if we could say yes, there is cancer, or no, there isn't. If someone comes with symptoms, or tumors or lumps, and you can say, now what do we do? Does this healthy, feeling person have to be put through all sorts of invasive studies, or can we treat them another way? Now, for the first time, it is possible. I hesitate when I say this, because it is on an investigational basis right now, but we can look at the plasma and directly measure a change that normally happens in the body when the body fights the presence of any cancer cells by itself. Seeing the needs of patients in my own practice of surgery has motivated me to work on getting that clinically applied.

And in the same area, this same technology has taken me into the cardiology area, looking at the fractions of cholesterol, the LDL, HDL, the LDL chylomicrons, and measuring them directly. So, interestingly enough, I became involved with some of the technology that we didn't have when I was in medical school, and did research with my own professor of physiology who taught me when I was in medical school, and with the professor of medicine who taught me when I was in medical school. I've been involved in basic research working on some similar things, and connecting with them once again, as we work to help make this available to physicians. And it's one more example of the number of areas there are within medicine and the number of things that you may end up doing that you never thought you would.

But the interest that you have, and the things that you work hard on as a teenager can take you in to all sorts of different directions. And when you are interested in things, and you want to find out about them, and you have the curiosity, and you are motivated to make a difference, you can. And who knows where it will take you? It's been exciting for me to find where my interests take me and are still taking me.

Extraordinary. I'm very glad you said that. Any final thoughts?

Tenley Albright: It's been astounding to see, at the American Academy of Achievement, the opportunities that are created. When you stop and think of the greats who are honored at these things, the Nobel Prize winners meeting each other, the people in different fields, the musicians meeting people in the fields of science, the artists, the historians, the poets, it's wonderful to see all these people coming together and having a chance to talk about common threads. And there are a lot of them. A lot of them have to do with visions and dreams and daring to dream. And again and again we keep on seeing there isn't one person in the whole Academy of Achievement who has ever escaped hard knocks, failures. No one likes to call them failures, maybe they say there are things that don't go quite the way they expected. But that's what makes the stories. And every one of us has them. Every one of you with your dreams can expect to have the highs and the lows.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Figure skating is a very good example. When you "wipe out," when you go flat on your face sliding across the ice, there is only one thing to do, and that is get up and try it again.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

And wow! When you've been flat on your face sliding across the ice, it feels so good when you finally get to the point where you can perfect that thing, and land that jump, and not be flat on the ice. And I guess it's a much better feeling because you know what it's like the other way.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. And anyone who has won anything knows what it's like not to win. And I remember the day when I kept on hearing "Well, someone has to lose." And it occurred to me someone has to win too. So you might as well give it a good hard try.

You certainly did. Thank you for talking with us.

You're welcome.

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