Kicking Adversity Aside: The Coach Kim Braswell Story

By Kim Braswell

As Coach Dooley alluded to in writing the foreword to this book, oftentimes the relationship between a coach and athlete is a two-way street. Each can be an inspiration to each other. This is the case when Kim Braswell, an exceptional athlete handed many challenges, became a part of the football program at the University of Georgia.

This story is not about Kim's success as an athlete or coach. The goal of this book is that it will provide inspiration to parents and children with handicaps, whatever their issue is. As referenced in these pages, many good people contributes to the successes of Kim in sports, coaching, and life. Inspiration can be given and received.

If this writing can transmit a sense of positivity to others with any type of adversity, then the author will have a feeling of accomplishment. This accomplishment will be about motiving and helping others just as so many done for him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662466762

Book preview

Chapter 1

Entering School

Right before I entered first grade in 1957, I had to try on my new hearing aid, which required a bra to hold the device to my chest with a wire that was attached to my large ear mole. I was not only scared to start first grade but was also very embarrassed to go to school for the first time with a bra and an ear mole. I gave my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Nunnally, a five-star rating in helping me get over that whirlwind of emotions that I experienced due to my hearing adversity.

Wearing a large hearing aid and having other first graders making fun of me were certainly hard things to accept at seven years old. I not only had to start first grade this way but also had to go to speech class two days each week during my physical education time. Mrs. Nunnally sat me on first row to help me hear what she was teaching, and I went through first through third grade right where the teacher could easily see me. And I could more easily decipher what she was saying.

Mom and Dad certainly knew what I was going through. However, they never let on that they felt sorry for me and would give me a butt whipping for crying when I got home from school. I was a miserable seven-year-old kid who had a terrible start. This was when I determined that I had no choice but to fight the adversity and keep fighting or receive a butt whipping. I chose to suck it up.

Finding an Outlet in Sports

As I entered the fourth grade, I became a member of the YMCA Gray-Y sports program. After football tryouts, I was chosen to be the quarterback for the Gray-Y football team. My grandfather, mom, and dad were very athletic, so sports became my way to get attention. As I started improving at quarterback, my confidence started building, and my teammates noticed. From the fourth through sixth grade, I received the award for the most valuable athlete. From that point on, I mostly forgot that I was wearing a hearing aid. The other players became my friends and stopped making fun of me, but my ego didn’t handle that newfound status well. I was getting cocky and way too impressed with myself, so Dad got his belt out again. Parents today might not understand this, but the occasional whippings calmed me down, gave me a reality check, and helped me become a team player and not puff myself up as a hero.

When I was in the seventh grade, Dad started a youth football program called the Midway Mighty Mites in which the competition level was extremely high for young players. This move by my dad put us against the best youth programs in the Southeastern states, which made me a much better player before entering high school. In the eighth grade, I continued to play for my dad’s youth program, which gave me the opportunity to play in bowl games, where the competition was just unbelievable. This was truly preparing me for my high school years. During this time, I also learned how to placekick and started seriously practicing at getting better at it.

Another challenge was facing an additional problem when I was diagnosed with diabetes just as I was about to begin my ninth grade year. The way my mom handled the problem was very similar to how she helped me faced the deafness problem, and that was to keep smiling and not treat me any differently than if I didn’t have a problem. She would give me my insulin shot every morning before school at 8:00 a.m. and sent me to school with a Hershey bar and bottle of orange juice. When I first faced this challenge, I had the taste for a chocolate candy bar or orange juice. Even when I wasn’t feeling weak, I just loved chocolate. I learned the hard way, however, of not doing what Mom said about not eating the candy bar if I wasn’t feeling weak.

The result was my blood sugar would skyrocket to four hundred when I got home, when the ideal count was between eighty and one hundred twenty. Mom asked, You ate the candy bar when you weren’t weak, correct?

And I had to say, Yes, ma’am, and Mom whipped my fanny for not following her advice about what the candy bars were for. After learning that the hard way, I got thirsty and gulped my orange juice when I wasn’t weak but had the craving for some sweet orange juice. I learned fairly quickly with those two mistakes that Mom sent me to school with those two sweets for emergencies and not cravings!

This was my everyday medicine for weakness, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), and not for a craving for sweets! I learned at an early age how to make my weakness go away and what caused my blood sugar level to go up. It took a lot of discipline to follow my rules and Mom’s!

When playing football, basketball, and baseball through all of this adversity, I learned to get something sweet only if I felt weak. It was like taking a pill. I got over my weakness by eating or drinking something sweet. After learning what made my blood sugar go up and down and managing my eating and exercise, I took thirty-two units of insulin for more than forty years until I was retired and was not as active. After all those years managing my blood sugar through thirty-two units of insulin with plenty of eating, rest, and exercise to manage it, I had continued to follow my same rules at now sixty-nine years old and am as happy as anyone without diabetes!

You had to be disciplined and in control of your diabetes by eating correctly, exercising, and getting plenty of rest, and you will be just as healthy as anybody else. Everybody with diabetes need to be checked by a diabetic doctor (endocrinologist) to make any needed changes every six months or more according to your everyday blood sugar levels.

There are two types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2. With type 1, your pancreas doesn’t produce any insulin and cannot be cured—this is what I have had all these years. Because it is not curable, I had to use insulin shots daily. With type 2 diabetes, the pancreas usually produces insulin but not enough for the body’s needs, or body cells are resistant to it. Type 2 diabetes can sometimes be cured.

While type 1 that I’ve had all these years cannot yet be cured, it can be managed. Having deafness and diabetes has been something I’ve fought all these years, but this never kept me down. I just became more disciplined—thanks to Mom for starting me off right. Taking responsibility with these adversities was very important. Tough times never last, but tough people do! These complications can be largely prevented with adequate blood sugar control in both types. Playing three sports year-round and then coaching high school football had been a blessing and not a problem! This helped me become a master of the disease and not a victim.

Chapter 2

Lipreading and Hearing Aids

With me being the first child, my mom and dad thought I just wasn’t paying attention when they said such routine things as Do you need to go to the potty? Are you sleepy? Let’s play catch with the rubber ball. At five or six years old when asked questions, I never responded. Mom had my hearing tested, and we found out I had an 80 percent loss! My mom’s aunt, Aunt Weezie, was an elementary school principal, and she encouraged my mom, saying that "we need to have Kim learn to read