Everybody, Always

I have a friend named Lex. He has the same problem in both of his eyes
that I have in one of mine. After ten failed operations, he lost his eyesight
completely when he was eight years old. In high school Lex began to
compete in track-and-field events. By the time he got to college, he
figured out he could run like the wind. So he went out for the track team.
My first thought was, How can a blind guy run track? Then I found out
Lex has a friend. His friend runs in front of Lex and calls his name. Lex
just runs toward a voice he knows he can trust.
Everyone who runs track-and-field picks an event. Lex picked the
long jump. This still makes my head spin. If you’re not familiar with this
event, you run as fast as you can down a three-foot-wide track from a
position more than one hundred feet away. With your last step, you
launch into the air as high as you can from a wooden board in the track
and land as far away as you can in a sand pit. Impossible for a blind guy,
right? Not for Lex. Do you know why? He’s got a friend whose voice he
knows he can trust.
What Lex does is both simple and impossible at the same time. When
it’s his turn to compete, his friend squares Lex’s shoulders to the sand pit
down the track, then goes to the edge of the pit and starts yelling, “Fly!
Fly! Fly!” over and over. Lex runs toward his friend’s voice as fast as he
can and then jumps as far as he’s able.
Get this: Lex went out for the US Paralympic team—and he made it.
He can jump farther than just about anyone in the world. Here’s the
reason why: people who are becoming love try impossible things because
they’ve surrounded themselves with voices they can trust.
At the World Championships, Lex’s friend took him to the far end of
the narrow track. He squared Lex’s shoulders and walked back to the edge
of the sand pit. Then he started calling, “Fly! Fly! Fly!” to Lex. Because
Lex is blind, he doesn’t always run in a straight line. The louder his
friend called out to Lex, the more Lex wandered. When Lex got to the end
of the track, he leaped into the air with everything he had. The problem?
His path had wandered, and he launched crooked. Everyone in the