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5 June 1998 Vol. I, No. 32 Feature Article   Travis Roy: SAR grads have the power to change lives forever by Brian Fitzgerald In a gymnasium packed with Sargent College graduates, along with their family and friends, Travis Roy (COM'00) recalled the autumn of 1995, when he was a Boston University freshman and his life was unfolding "like a dream come true." He had earned a starting spot on a hockey team that had won the National Championship four months earlier. "Everything went just as I had planned," he said, adding that his aspirations certainly didn't include being the main speaker at a graduate degree convocation ceremony for BU's Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. However, his life would change drastically 11 seconds into his first shift in his first hockey game, when he prepared to check a North Dakota player. He deflected awkwardly off the defenseman, went headfirst into the boards, and cracked his fourth vertebra. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Roy has since gained some movement in his right bicep. "When I find myself doing things that I have never dreamed of, like giving this speech to you today, I can't help but wonder what my life would have been like had it not been for my accident," mused Roy. "I think that right now, it being a Sunday around four o'clock, I'd probably be out on the golf course, playing with my friends. Or maybe I'd be in the weight room, getting ready for senior year. I certainly wouldn't be sitting in a wheelchair giving a Commencement address to a class of graduate students. Nor would I have ever written a book, spoken at a Senate committee hearing, traveled across the country promoting spinal cord injury awareness, or be getting ready to coproduce a feature film about my life." Roy said that at times he thinks that if he could only pinch himself, he might be able to wake up from this dream, "which all too often feels like a nightmare. Reality strikes, however. I can't pinch myself. I'm not out on a golf course. And there's a graduate class sitting in front of me, hoping to hear something meaningful." And that's exactly what the graduates got. Roy is by no means a reluctant spokesman for quadriplegics: his story is one of how a handicapped person can lead a productive life, and he does not hesitate to tell it. He also has plenty to say about hope for a medical breakthrough in spinal cord research and the vital role graduates in rehabilitation sciences have in their patients' survival. But truth be told, he'd rather be golfing, and he let the graduates know that. "There's a fundamental honesty about him," remarked sportswriter E. M. Swift after he and Roy wrote Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage, and Triumph. Perhaps that is why Sargent College Dean Alan Jette said prior to Roy's speech that the book, "in my opinion, should be required reading for every student and clinician in the rehabilitation field." Roy simply tells it as it is. Travis Roy Photo by Vin Catania "People who have injuries such as mine find themselves engaged in a mental battle," he said. "Much of the recovery process depends on one's mental ability to deal with the situation. People in your position have the potential to help us win or lose that battle." Roy recalled the long months in his hospital bed, when he counted the white cork ceiling tiles to pass the time. "I remember hearing my sister telling me that this is where the road to recovery begins," he said. He couldn't have embarked on that journey, he said, without the dedication