The journey from being a paralyzed child to a power-hitting volleyball star with a heavy heart and an inspirational outlook on life.
Taking a step can hold a variety of meanings. For a baby, it’s typically a first. For Neil Armstrong in 1969, a step on the moon was “a giant leap for mankind.” But, on his way to academic success and athletic stardom, Princeton University volleyball player Carl Hamming’s first unassisted step after being told he would never walk again has been defined as a miracle.
Hamming, a 6-foot-7 right-side hitter, may appear to be a stereotypical athlete when soaring into the air on the hardwood. However, while the junior was primarily playing basketball and baseball in middle school, he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder that attacks the body’s nerves and slowly paralyzes most of the body.
“For the next six months I was confined to a hospital bed,” Hamming said. “One of my doctors was highly doubtful that I'd ever walk again, but for whatever reason, maybe I was just a dumb, cocky kid, but I stayed pretty positive throughout it all and insisted that I would walk again and eventually compete in able-bodied sports once again.”
The Lake Forest, Ill., native was determined to one day compete with the best in the sporting world, and his nothing-can-stop-me attitude kept him fighting to recover from the disease that afflicts about one in 100,000 people according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
After Hamming was given the “okay” to leave the hospital bed, he was confined to a wheel chair for the next two-and-a-half years while he started recovering strength and function of his body.
“The day the doctor told us that Carl would not walk again, without some assistance such as a cane, my husband and I went silent,” Carl’s mother, Mary Hamming said. “A couple of hours later, after asking Carl about what he was thinking and feeling, he responded in a matter of fact voice, ‘Oh, I'm going to walk again.’ His faith was stronger than mine!”
When he entered the seventh grade, Hamming was able to sit upright and control a wheelchair on his own, and he began to participate in wheelchair sports just to continue his passion for competition, which he says was vital to his rehabilitation and mental sanity.
Hamming struggled with many personal problems such as facing his classmates, fitting in, and getting around in public. Competing in wheelchair basketball, tennis, and track & field through the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association was the perfect outlet for him to make friends and rekindle his desire to compete at a high level of competition. Being confined to that wheelchair led to a turning point in life, giving Hamming a perspective to carry with him forever.
“It’s a bit cliché, but I think it's impossible for anybody to go through an experience like that and not have it change their outlook on life,” the long-legged Hamming said. “Maybe it's because I was just a young teenager, but I never really thought much about having to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. Maybe I was just a little too cocky, naive, or dumb, but I just always sort of assumed that I would get better and return to able-bodied sports. It was easier to keep this perspective too because I did keep making progress.”
Hamming excelled in wheelchair basketball due to his unusually lengthy wingspan for a seventh grader, but track & field was a different story due to uncomfortable wheelchairs and painful sensations in his legs. Using his success as a peg for recovery, Hamming inched closer and closer to his goal of walking again.
“I was constantly recovering in baby steps,” Hamming said in reflection. “But a step was a step.”
Soon after finishing seventh grade, the geosciences major took his first steps with a walker. Then, using a cane, Hamming traveled around to watch his role model and older brother Brian play volleyball at Lake Forest High School in Ill., and with Adversity Volleyball Club (AVC), a sport he had never participated in.
“The first time he walked in public, with a walker, was at our church on Easter Sunday morning,” Carl’s mother said. “A few people from our church tell me every Easter, that they now associate Easter with the miracle of Carl walking again, and the sound of his wheeled walker traversing the bricks of our church floor.”
By the time Carl was nearing junior high graduation, he could run again. However, Hamming struggled with the ability to jump. He realized he had fallen behind his classmates in the fundamental skills of the sports he loved, baseball and basketball, and decided to give volleyball a try.
“I found out about Carl’s experience just after I started playing with him when we were 15 years old,” former AVC teammate Rob Sabo said. “He could barely jump when we were 15, but his height was what helped him.”
After joining AVC and making the final cut for the volleyball team his freshman year, a passion started brewing. However, as he struggled to fit in socially at the beginning of high school, Hamming continued following in his brother’s footsteps while spending time with Brian and taking mental notes of the passion he displayed in the sport. Carl spent the final three years of high school on the varsity squad, and was named to high school Volleyball’s Fab-50 list and selected to the Illinois All-state High School Volleyball Team.
Traveling the country with his club team, Hamming was noticed by former Princeton head coach Glenn Nelson. A dream of his to attend Princeton and play volleyball, just like his older brother Brian, seemed like destiny although just four years prior, he was traveling in a wheelchair.
Hamming put together a recruiting tape, met with Coach Nelson, and interviewed with the heralded university before getting the call – an invitation to be challenged academically and physically for the next four years.
“When I found out that I got into Princeton, it made my college selection pretty easy,” said Hamming, who enjoys being part of the eating clubs at school. “Princeton is a special place and having the opportunity to play a Division I sport was very enticing. It combines a rare blend of academics and high level varsity athletics and I've loved being here since freshman week nearly three years ago.”
However, while the academic and athletic world of college was on the upswing for Hamming, his fortune took a turn for the worse. In September 2008, Brian (pictured with Carl), at the age of 24, committed suicide.
A brother, friend, and mentor to Carl all his life, grief and trembling breaths are still apparent in his voice. Recalling how Brian changed his life, Carl reflected on how Brian helped lead him on the path to where he is today.
“It was always a lot of fun when we got together and began exchanging stories, bragging about certain plays. We used to love watching high-level volleyball together, things like the Olympics where we both could appreciate their level of play,” Hamming said passionately, appreciating the memories spent with his brother. “And I know he was my biggest fan, breaking down stats or any game tape he could get his hands on. Knowing how much he cared about my performance, motivated me to pick my game up and push myself.”
Carl, although he never had a chance to play on the same court as Brian because they were four years apart in school, knows that he could never match the intensity and passion of his brother on the court. After he passed away, a memorial service was held at Princeton for some of Brian’s college buddies and teammates to pay their respects and share some personal stories.
“One of the things I came away with was just how much he loved playing here,” Hamming said, choking up. “He really loved the sport and he was incredibly proud that I came here to play and he was really happy that I could share in the same unique opportunity to play Princeton ball. He was a terrific older brother, full of experience and guidance.”
Brian was always mentoring Carl and not just in volleyball. He would provide his younger brother with all sorts of advice: places to hang out and study on campus, restaurants, and courses to take and courses to avoid.
The lessons Brian has been able to teach Carl have turned him into a person who although he excels on the hardwood, is an even greater person off the court.
Whenever he can, the 20-year-old enjoys offering encouraging words to people suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome. During this past winter break, Hamming went to the local veteran’s hospital where his father Bruce works in Chicago to talk with an 18-year-old navy recruit who contracted the disease after receiving his immunization shots. Hamming recalled at the time that the recruit was in such severe condition that he could barely talk because his facial muscles and lungs were so paralyzed. Unfortunately, Hamming was only able to give a shortened version of his story, explaining that recovery can happen; just sometimes it occurs very slowly.
“The most amazing thing about [Carl] is his easy-going nature,” Princeton teammate Jeff McCown said. “He is one of the most likeable people you will ever meet because he always seems genuinely interested in what's going on with everyone else around him.”
McCown, who suffered from bacterial meningitis and was confined to a hospital bed for nearly a month in 2003, is not the only teammate that has sympathized with Hamming and felt a positive impact personally and on the court.
“Playing alongside Carl has been an adventure in seeing him grow as a person,” Sabo said. “The fact that he went from being wheelchair bound and told that he would never play sports again to being a star player at Princeton is proof that anything can be done if you have a big heart and work for it day in and day out."
On the court, Hamming recently led his team to a sixth-place finish in the Tait Division of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, as the team lost to St. Francis on April 25 to end the season. However, Hamming's 12 kills and four digs weren't enough to send the Tigers to the EIVA semifinal, losing in a five game match: 30-25, 30-26, 28-30, 32-34, 15-9.
As Hamming prepares to wrap up his junior year and partake in his final year of eligibility on a volleyball court, his inspiration grows daily by carrying Brian with him on the court. He is a symbol to Carl that hard work and dedication can take him anywhere he wants to, and that his big brother is always watching from above.
"I remember the games I used to watch of Brian playing at Princeton and at special, and usually odd times, it will strike me that I'm playing on the same court," Hamming said with pride in his voice. "So much of my love for volleyball is associated with Brian that it would be impossible to separate the two."
As the team graduates six talented seniors this year, Hamming is expected to take on the leadership role for the Princeton volleyball team, and with a new coach coming in, expectations will be set high – a challenge he is up for.
Through his mother's eyes, it is also a challenge that Carl will accept, thrive in, and use to teach others a way of going about living life on and off the court. Although her worry and pain for Carl were great, his positive outlook helped her to take care of him more easily and helped her realize that her once paralyzed son would be able to adjust to, accept, and build on whatever his future brings. Whether is be mentally, physically, or emotionally, Carl has taught his mother about moving on in a positive light.
"The amazing thing about Carl's journey is that he accepted it all with a great attitude," Mary Hamming proudly said. "He played every adaptive sport that was offered to him, and he just kept smiling the whole time."
Everything Hamming has experienced in the past 10 years has shaped him into the person he is today, and given him a perspective that one could only wish to share. Even though he is at Princeton, he has come to realize that the world won't come crashing down if he turns in a paper late or fails a quiz.
"Everything I have experienced has been a reminder to do the cliché thing and live life – enjoy the ability to walk and run, enjoy hanging out with friends, and just relax," Hamming promptly said. "I hope whatever I end up doing, I'll make my brother proud. But I also know he'd just want me to have a good time, especially on the volleyball court."
University: Princeton
Year in School: Junior
Experience: Seven years
Date of Birth: 5/25/88
Height: 6'7"
High School: Lake Forest (Ill.)
Volleyball Club: Adversity Volleyball Club
Favorite Television Show: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Favorite Leisure Activity: Laying on the couch or at the beach
Favorite Food: Skittles
Favorite Musician: Dierks Bentley
School and Major: Princeton University dept. of Geosciences
Favorite Sporting Moment(s): Taking a game off of Penn State last year at home and the Cubs '03 playoff run through the first 7 and 1/3 innings.
Post-graduation: "I love to work outdoors and travel, so I'd love to work some sort of internship after graduation for a while and then think about the possibility of grad. school, but for now I have no concrete plans and I'm alright with that."
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2009 Princeton Men's Volleyball
Overall Individual Statistics: #37 Carl Hamming
(as of Apr 27, 2009) All matches
Games Played: 84
Kills: 235
Digs: 118
Blocks (solo): 8
Blocks (assisted): 53
Aces: 21
Assists: 40
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If you took the time to read Carl's story, I hope you enjoyed it as well as the rest of my blog this year. I would also encourage you to check out Courtney Spears' final blog about a family's drive to promote wheelchair sports in order to understand that aspect of Carl's diverse childhood.
Thanks again.
* photos courtesy of Carl Hamming
(P.S. - Dear Jeff Peterson: This picture was ONLY taken because you asked for it to be. Happy trails. )
