Scott Hamilton, Olympic Gold Medalist in figure skating and cancer survivor, has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor for the third time. And yet, his faith is strong and he chooses to see God’s hand in each of his illnesses.
He was born with a brain tumor but did not become aware of it until much later in life. As a child, this brain tumor inhibited his growth and in the midst of recovering from this “mysterious” illness, he was drawn to skating. Looking back, he realizes that if that tumor hadn’t kept him from getting taller, his whole life and career would have been changed. In his video for I am Second, he says, “I choose to look at that brain tumor as the greatest gift I could have gotten, because it made everything else possible.”
His brain tumor was not symptomatic while he skated and he became a champion skater, a popular entertainer with Stars on Ice, and an Olympic commentator.
However, he lost his mother to cancer which devastated him, and then faced his own fight with testicular cancer in 1997. These struggles showed him his need for God, but it was his wife, Tracie, who brought him to the church, where his faith was able to take root.
After surviving testicular cancer, he and his soon to be wife, worried they might not be able to have a child. But God was with them. Their first son was born 9 months and 2 days after their wedding.
Then he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In his I am Second video, he shares that when he told his wife, she took his hands and immediately began to pray. “It was in that moment I knew where I was going to put everything, my trust, my faith, everything. So, the most powerful moment of my life. From that moment forward we just said, whatever it is, whatever it takes, we’ll face this.”
After the grueling process of surgery and cancer treatment, he and his wife expected that they would probably not be able to have another child. They surrendered that desire to God and a month later, they were pregnant. Hamilton refers to his second son as “Miracle Max.” They have also adopted two children.
In a recent interview with People, he says the first thing he teaches his figure skating students is how to get up because they will definitely fall. We all fall time and again, he says, but what’s important is how you get up. Each time you get up you become stronger to face the next challenge, which will undoubtedly come.
And for him the next challenge came in a familiar form. He realized being a parent how important it is to set a positive tone for your kids. So when it came time to tell them the brain tumor was back, he chose to keep it light.
“We choose, I choose to truly, in everything that we do, we celebrate life,” he says.
The Washington Post records him as saying:
“I’ve been blessed beyond my wildest imagination; I would never even think to dream the stuff that I’ve been able to do. Last round, in 2010, I told Tracie, ‘God doesn’t owe me a day. I’m good. Whatever’s next is next.’ The blessings keep coming because we allow them and we ask for them.”
