What does an Olympic athlete do if he falls?
by Brook Berry
In my office at home, there is a poster of my grandfather, Karl W. Anderson, leaping over a hurdle. Beneath the photo is a Bible verse, Hebrews 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race that has been marked out for us.” Above it all, in a bold, capital font, is simply the word “PERSEVERANCE.”
Faith and perseverance are the enduring legacies of my grandfather, a hurdler who ran in the 1924 Paris Olympics. This year, members of my family returned to Paris to celebrate his life and story, which remains significant today, one hundred years later.
Our grandfather had two world records in the high hurdles when he arrived for the Paris games. The youngest of 7 brothers, Karl had two passions; athletics and medicine. He wanted to be a world-class athlete and a world-famous surgeon. At 24 years old, he became the first Minnesotan to qualify for the Olympic Games. He was also the first Minnesotan to finish medical school in less than 4 years.
On Wednesday, July 9, 1924, at 2:30 pm, at the Yves-du-Manoir Olympic Stadium, Karl Anderson crouched in Lane 2 at the starting line of the final heat of the 110 hurdles. After the first few hurdles, Karl is clearly one of the leaders. Then, at the second to last hurdle, tragedy strikes. Karl catches his foot on the top hurdle and goes down hard. His USA teammate, Daniel Kinsey – a man who had never beaten my grandfather before – crossed the finish line for the gold.
There is a video online that shows the race. One camera stayed on our grandfather to show what happened next. The race is over. He is alone on the track. He stands up, shakes himself off, crosses the last hurdle and trots to the finish line. This little epilogue becomes quite significant in my grandfather’s history. That last effort, when all seemed lost, meant the difference between giving up and finishing 5th.
Back in Minnesota, his character was tested once again. November 9, 1925, not much more than a year later, Karl was already working as a surgeon in an office in downtown Minneapolis. That morning, he was sitting at his desk writing a prescription when he suddenly had a terrible headache. The last thing he remembered was watching his pen drop to the floor. He woke up in the hospital eleven days later.
Karl Anderson had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage – a massive stroke that completely paralyzed his right side.
Once he had been a world-class athlete. Now he couldn’t stand or walk. He had been a promising young surgeon. Now he had lost the use of his right hand for the rest of his life. He would need to learn how to speak again. Worth mentioning, he and my grandmother had been married for only 6 weeks.
What did he do next? Same as before. He got up and finished the race.
My grandfather learned to walk again, although he never regained the use of his right side. He had to master writing, eating and dressing with his left hand. He taught himself to speak again. He earned a second degree in Internal Medicine and taught at the University Medical School for the next 4 decades.
Karl Anderson also began a new career as Medical Director at Northwestern National Life Insurance Company. It is here that he found a way to reach a world-wide audience. “I extended my practice over the entire United States,” he said later. After being denied one medical career, he was determined to build another.
Karl Anderson’s innovative disability insurance program found a way to help 80% of all heart attack victims get back to a normal life. It transformed the industry. This was only the beginning.
He helped develop a program that contributed to the treatment of tuberculosis. He published a groundbreaking report on the treatment of stomach cancer. He was one of the first to publish a paper on the dangers of smoking, specifically then-new studies demonstrating that nicotine will transfer from a pregnant mother to her baby in utero and through mother’s milk.
He published essays featured in Time Magazine on the latest medical breakthroughs, including treatments for coronary heart disease, liver disease, ulcers, diabetes, and many more. Notably, Karl Anderson was one of the first to write about a new medical classification called “Geriatrics” (in the 1950’s, geriatrics meant “a longer life after 40.”).
This is by no means a complete list of all my grandfather’s accomplishments. All this from someone who was what most people in America would have considered disabled himself.
This is the legacy that members of my family and I were celebrating at the 2024 Paris Olympics. It is a story that made the local news in Minnesota. Here’s the link.
I share this story so that it can be an inspiration to whomever is reading this. We have all been in a situation when we thought all was lost. Perhaps you feel broken, finished, hopeless even now. Think of his story and make it your own. Don’t give up. It is over. Stand up. Shake yourself off. Cross whatever hurdles remain. Finish the race.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race that has been marked out for us.”