The doctor said no, she would never walk again. But Wilma Rudolph thought differently and went on to prove him wrong.
Perhaps you, or someone you know, will do something similar someday: achieve greatness against the odds.
Wilma Rudolph had a tough start in life. She was born prematurely and weighed less than five pounds. (The average newborn weighs about seven pounds.) By the time she was four years old, she had had scarlet fever and double pneumonia. That, on top of more common illnesses like measles, mumps, whooping cough, and chicken pox. In those years, Wilma spent most of her time in bed. About her childhood, she observed, “When I was little, I always wanted to be someone else.” ▶


◀ In 1945, when Wilma was five years old, she came down with polio. Polio is a disease caused by a virus. It can paralyze a person’s arms, legs, or muscles that control breathing. According to Rudolph, her left leg became “useless.” Like many people who had polio, Wilma had to wear braces on her leg and foot. Her doctor told her she’d never walk again.
Of the years when she wore the braces, Rudolph said, “I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to get them off.” Wilma’s 21 brothers and sisters took turns helping her. They massaged her legs every day and acted as look-outs. Here’s how Rudolph described that time in her life.
When you come from a large and wonderful family, there’s always a way to achieve your goals, especially when you don’t want your parents knowing them. I would take off my braces, then station my brothers and sisters all through the house and they would tell me if my parents were coming and then I’d hurry to put the braces back on.

▲ Wilma’s mother refused to accept the idea that her daughter would never walk again. But there was little medical care for Blacks near their home. To get Wilma the help she needed, her mother took her by bus on the 50-mile journey to Fisk University, a Black medical college in Nashville, Tennessee. Twice a week for two years, Wilma got the treatment she needed. By the time she was about 11, she could walk without help of any kind. “My doctor told me I would never walk again,” Rudolph recalled. “My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.”

▲ During an interview Rudolph recalled, “By the time I was 12, I was challenging every boy in our neighborhood at running, jumping, everything. I could beat most of them.” Later that year, some of those same boys taught Wilma how to play basketball. Soon, her brothers put up a basketball hoop in the yard. As her mother observed, from that moment on “it was basketball, basketball, basketball.”
Wilma played on the girls’ basketball team at Burt High School, where the coach gave her the nickname “Skeeter” (short for “mosquito”). Why Skeeter? “You’re little, you’re fast, and you always get in my way,” he said. Wilma became an all-state basketball player while at Burt and set her first record. She scored 49 points in one game. Wilma Rudolph was on her way to stardom.
Reflection
Reflect on Rudolph’s reaction to sports. Do you think she would have had the same reaction if she had not had to overcome polio? Explain your thinking.
