During the time that Julie was away from home winning races, her mother sold Filly to one of their neighbors, who then sold her to a horse farm in another part of Michigan. Though Filly was no longer a part of her family, Julie never stopped thinking about her.
One night, after Julie had been a successful jockey for several years, she began having dreams about her old horse. In her dreams, Julie sensed that Filly was in danger and needed her help.
Not knowing where to find Filly, she drew up a list of every barn in the state of Michigan and began calling around, searching for her friend.
It seemed hopeless, until Julie reached the last barn on her list. The woman on the phone said she now owned Filly, but wouldn’t for much longer. She was just about to take the horse to be sold at an auction.
“Don’t sell her!” Julie implored. “I want to buy her. I’ll be there in two days!”
Hitching a horse trailer to her truck, Julie drove all the way to Michigan from her home in New Jersey. When she arrived at the barn, Filly’s new owner took her out to the field where the horse was tied. At first, Julie didn’t recognize her. Filly was now very old.
But once she heard about the animal’s ornery disposition, she knew she had the right horse.
“Don’t get on her,” the farm owner warned. “She’ll buck you off. She bucks everybody off.”
But Julie knew better. She untied Filly and hopped up on her back. It was just like old times. Filly remembered every trick Julie had taught her.
The owner couldn’t believe her eyes. No one had ever been able to ride this crazy horse. She agreed to let Julie buy Filly for $500.
When Julie got home to her farm in New Jersey, she took Filly to a veterinarian and learned that her fears for the horse were well founded. Filly had a hoof disease that could have killed her if it had gone undetected. It took almost a month, but Julie was able to nurse Filly back to health.
When Filly was better, Julie called her best friends, Pete and Paula Freundlich, and asked them to bring their two daughters to meet her old riding companion. When the family arrived, Julie led the girls out to the stall.
“This is Filly,” Julie said, “and she’s for you.”
Julie knew she could no longer care for Filly, but she hoped that the two girls, who were six and four years old, would have the same energy and patience she had once had at their age. From the joyful looks on the girls’ faces, Julie knew she had chosen wisely.
Before Filly went to live with her new family, Julie just had a few words of warning:
“Don’t be misled by this pony,” she said. “She is a diabolical creature inside, full of spit and nasty thoughts. If you girls can learn to ride Filly, then you’ll be able to ride any horse in the world.”
When Julie Krone retired from racing, she was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Her long career racing horses had begun on the back of a “rotten little pony” who became her best friend.
From the moment Lionel “Leo” Messi took his first steps at just nine months old, he spent all his time chasing soccer balls his older brothers left around the house. But you can’t play soccer indoors, so Leo went looking for a new place to get his kicks.
Leo left his house in search of some space. The first time he wandered outside, a bicycle whizzed past and bowled him over.
Shaken up and a little bruised, Leo picked himself up and toddled back inside. That night, as he lay in bed, he noticed that his arm was swollen. His parents took him to the hospital, where a doctor confirmed that he had broken a bone during the accident. Leo’s parents were amazed—he had gone the entire day without once complaining about the pain. It was a lesson that Leo’s soccer opponents would one day learn: you can knock Leo Messi down, but you can’t stop him.
When Leo turned three, he received his first soccer ball as a birthday present. It was white with a blue five-pointed pattern, just like the kind used by the pros.
“Look after him!” Leo’s mother shouted to his brothers as he ventured outdoors to play with the older boys. Leo was one of the smallest kids on his block.
Leo and his soccer ball soon became inseparable—he brought it everywhere. And if he couldn’t bring the ball with him, he’d fashion one out of rags, rolled-up bags, or wads of Silly Putty. He even took the ball to bed with him at night, squeezing it between his legs as he drifted off to sleep.
When he couldn’t find someone to play soccer with, Leo would kick his ball against a wall in his hometown of Rosario, Argentina. Bam, bam, bam—over and over until his neighbors complained. But nothing could stop his practice drills.
Eventually, a soccer coach took notice of Leo’s dedication. “There’s no way of stopping this boy,” the coach said. “He spends all day playing and he wants to play when the sun has gone down. When everybody is asleep!”
Sometimes bullies tried to separate Leo from his soccer ball. They’d grab it and throw him on the ground. But Leo always got back up and went right on dribbling. It almost seemed as if the ball was attached to his foot with string like a yo-yo.
As he grew older, Leo stayed small for his age. But what he lacked in size, he made up for in skill.
On his first day of school, Leo was told he couldn’t play soccer because he was too fragile. To prove to his teacher that he was as good and as strong as the other kids, he put on an amazing dribbling exhibition. From then on, he was the first player picked when the kids chose teams for soccer games.
Leo joined a local youth team, and his reputation as Rosario’s wee wizard of soccer grew. Kids started calling him “The Maestro” because he was like a brilliant musical conductor when he had the ball. It didn’t matter how small he was. No one could take the ball away if he refused to give it up.
Although Leo’s stature never bothered him on the soccer pitch, his parents were becoming concerned about his inability to grow. The other kids in town grew an inch or two every year, but Leo stayed the same height.
When Leo was eleven years old, his parents took him to a doctor. After a series of tests, he learned that he had a growth hormone deficiency, or GHD. In other words, he had stopped growing. Leo would need to start treatments if he didn’t want to stay stuck at the same height for the rest of his life.
Night after night, before going to sleep, Leo had growth hormone injections in his legs. At first, he was afraid of the needles and asked his mother to give him the shots. But eventually he decided that it was something he needed to learn to do for himself. The first few times he tried, his hand shook. With time and practice, however, he got used to it. He started carrying a little cooler at all times. Inside were the needles for his injections.
The treatments seemed to be working. Leo began to grow. But his parents had trouble paying for the medicine. Leo’s soccer club agreed to help, but even they couldn’t afford to cover all his medical bills.
Eventually a team in Spain called FC Barcelona came to Leo’s rescue. The coaches there had heard about the soccer-playing sensation from Argentina, and they were eager to see him in person. If Leo could only convince them to let him join the team, they would cover the cost of his hormone treatments.
Now Leo had a mission. Using a borrowed video camera, he filmed himself juggling oranges with his feet like they were soccer balls.
He sent the video to the FC Barcelona office in Spain. The team officials were so impressed with Leo’s skills that they offered him a tryout.
Leo and his father made the 14-hour journey from Rosario to Buenos Aires, then across the Atlantic Ocean to Barcelona. It was the first time Leo had ever been on an airplane. The turbulence made his stomach churn.
When he arrived, the FC Barcelona coaches looked him over. Some of them were not impressed. They wondered if this was a joke. How could this short little boy compete against the biggest, baddest, best players in Spain? After sizing him up, one of the team officials ruffled Leo’s hair. “You better be good,” the man said. “Because you’re so small.”
On his
first day of practice, Leo was nearly overcome with nervous jitters. Before he could even get inside the locker room, he froze. He started to change into his soccer uniform right there in the hallway. Eventually, he worked up the courage to go inside and meet his teammates.
“Be careful with him,” one player said. “He’s very small. Don’t break him.” Others called him “midget” or “The Flea.” These were not compliments. Leo was so afraid the other players would not accept him that he sat off by himself and didn’t say hello to anyone.
Once the day’s scrimmage began, Leo started to feel more comfortable. Everyone was struggling to reach his level. He stole the ball from the team’s best offensive player, then beat its best defensive player in a one-on-one situation. He scored five goals, dazzling the FC Barcelona coaches with his speed and foot skills.
From then on, no one called him names. When they used the word “flea,” it was to taunt someone who had just been left in Leo’s dust, as in: “You guys just got beat by the Flea!”
The FC Barcelona officials were so impressed by Leo’s play that they offered to pay for his hormone treatments and move his entire family to Spain. In fact, they were in such a rush to snatch him up before another team did that they drew up a contract on a paper napkin. Leo and his parents signed it right then and there.
In 2000, Leo’s family packed up their home in Argentina and made the journey across the Atlantic. This time, the move would be permanent. Leo had to continue with his growth hormone therapy and kept growing at a normal rate. He would never be tall, but he was more than big enough to match up against the best youth soccer players in the world—which he did every day. He joined Barcelona’s under-fourteen team and quickly became its star player.
Leo’s opponents occasionally tried to take advantage of his size. In only his second game in Barcelona, he was fouled so hard that he had to leave the field in an ambulance. He had fractured a bone in his face. But Leo returned even more determined to lead his team to victory. “Something deep in my character allows me to take the hits and get on with trying to win,” he said.
Undaunted by the rough play, Leo zoomed through the junior ranks and made the regular Barcelona club at age 16. In 2005, he became the youngest player ever to score a goal for the franchise. He went on to lead “Barca” to six league titles in his first ten years with the team. Though he topped out at only five feet seven inches tall, Lionel Messi had become one of the biggest soccer stars in the world.
* BIBLIOGRAPHY *
There are many great books about great athletes, including autobiographies (books written by the person about himself or herself) and biographies (books about famous people written by someone else). The following is a list of the main sources used by the author in researching and writing this book.
Babe Ruth
Brother Gilbert, CFX. Young Babe Ruth: His Early Life and Baseball Career, from the Memoirs of a Xaverian Brother. Edited by Harry Rothgerber. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1999.
Crawford, Bill. All American: The Rise and Fall of Jim Thorpe. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.
Creamer, Robert W. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. New York: Fireside, 1974.
Krull, Kathleen. Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought). Illustrated by Kathleen Hewitt. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995.
Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. New York: Broadway Books, 2006.
Wagenheim, Kal. Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974.
Jackie Robinson
Krull, Kathleen. Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought). Illustrated by Kathleen Hewitt. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995.
Billie Jean King
Hasday, Judy L. Extraordinary Women Athletes. New York: Children’s Press, 2000.
King, Billie Jean. Billie Jean. With Kim Chapin. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
———. Billie Jean. With Frank Deford. New York: Viking Press, 1982.
Peyton Manning
Christopher, Matt. On the Field with … Peyton and Eli Manning. Text by Stephanie True Peters. New York: Little, Brown, 2008.
Manning, Archie, and Peyton Manning. Manning: A Father, His Sons, and a Football Legacy. With John Underwood. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
Danica Patrick
Patrick, Danica. Danica: Crossing the Line. With Laura Morton. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Bobby Orr
Brunt, Stephen. Searching for Bobby Orr. Toronto: Seal Books, 2007.
Orr, Bobby. Orr: My Story. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2013.
Michael Jordan
Halberstam, David. Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made. New York: Broadway Books, 2000.
Krugel, Mitchell. Jordan: The Man, His Words, His Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Tiger Woods
Helling, Steve. Tiger: The Real Story. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2010.
Yao Ming
Larmer, Brook. Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar. New York: Gotham Books, 2005.
Ming, Yao. Yao: A Life in Two Worlds. With Ric Bucher. New York: Hyperion, 2004.
Gabrielle Douglas
Douglas, Gabrielle. Raising the Bar. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Hasday, Judy L. Extraordinary Women Athletes. New York: Children’s Press, 2000.
Krull, Kathleen. Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought). Illustrated by Kathleen Hewitt. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995.
Van Natta, Don, Jr. Wonder Girl: The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias. New York: Little, Brown, 2011.
Wallace, Rich, and Sandra Neil Wallace. Babe Conquers the World: The Legendary Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Honesdale, PA: Calkins Creek, 2014.
Bruce Lee
Koestler-Grack, Rachel A. Bruce Lee. New York: Chelsea House, 2007.
Krull, Kathleen. Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought). Illustrated by Kathleen Hewitt. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995.
Thomas, Bruce. Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit. Berkeley, CA: Blue Snake Books, 1994.
Muhammad Ali
Hauser, Thomas. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. New York: Touchstone, 1991.
Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
Jesse Kuhaulua
Adams, Andrew, and Mark Schilling. Jesse! Sumo Superstar. Tokyo: Japan Times Ltd., 1985.
Kuhaulua, Jesse. Takamiyama: The World of Sumo. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Julie Krone
Koda-Callan, Elizabeth. The Good Luck Pony. With contribution by Julie Krone. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Krone, Julie. Riding for My Life. With Nancy Ann Richardson. New York: Little, Brown, 1995.
Lionel Messi
Balague, Guillem. Messi. London: Orion Publishing, 2014.
Part, Michael. The Flea: The Amazing Story of Leo Messi. Beverly Hills: Sole Books, 2013.
* INDEX *
A
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem
accidents, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 7.1, 14.1, 16.1
acrobatics
Ali, Muhammad
B
bad luck
Baltimore Orioles
baseball, 1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 7.1, 11.1
Baseball Hall of Fame
basketball, 2.1, 3.1, 7.1, 9.1, 9.2, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3
Belmont Stakes
bicycle, 9.1, 9.2, 13.1, 13.2
billiards
Boston Bruins
boxing, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, 13.2
Brother Matthias
bullying, 2.1, 9.1, 10.1, 16.1, 16.2
C
Chicago Bears
Chicago Bulls
Chinese Basketball Association
chores, 11.1, 12.1
C
how, Liang, 10.1, 10.2
circus
Clay, Cassius, see Muhammad Ali
coach, see mentors and role models
competitiveness, 7.1, 7.2
confidence, lack of
contract, 1.1, 6.1, 6.2, 16.1
courage, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2
D
Daigoro, Takamiyama, see Jesse Kuhaulua
dance, 4.1, 4.2, 11.1, 12.1
dedication, 13.1, 14.1, 16.1
determination, 3.1, 5.1
Didrikson Zaharias, Mildred “Babe”
difficult decision
discipline
discrimination, 2.1, 2.2, 10.1
Douglas, Gabrielle “Gabby,” itr.1, 10.1
Downs, Reverend Karl
E
embarrassment, 4.1, 9.1
emotions, controlling, 5.1, 13.1
encouragement, 3.1, 8.1
Enter the Dragon
eyeglasses and eyesight
F
FC Barcelona
fears, conquering, 5.1, 11.1
fencing
fighting, 6.1, 7.1, 12.1, 12.2
financial difficulties, 3.1, 6.1, 11.1, 14.1, 14.2
Kid Athletes Page 7
