Low key and unassuming, X-Games 11 gold medalist Tyler Walker does not want to be held up as a role model.
The 20-year-old geography student at the University of New Hampshire would rather talk about the daunting athletic challenges he surmounts as a mono-ski racer — where he reaches speeds up to 75 miles per hour, taking jumps any skier would — than life in a wheelchair as a double amputee.
Speaking to students during an all-school assembly at Traverse City East Junior High Friday afternoon, Walker flat out stated his purpose was not to be held up as an inspiration. Instead for 45 minutes, he shared about his life and passion: showing videos from a laptop computer, relating the ins and outs of adaptive skiing and describing his experiences as a member of the United States Disabled Ski Team and at the Paralympics last year in Turino, Italy.
"Hopefully you'll get something from this and if you're inspired, that's wonderful,” said Walker, who has been skiing for 14 years.
Walker's approach struck a chord with attendees such as Abby Woughter, an eighth grader at the school.
"I liked how he wasn't trying to be inspiring,” she said. "He was just trying to be himself and not put on a show.”
Walker, of Franconia, N.H., visited the region over the weekend, kicking off days on the slopes at local ski resorts with a talk at Traverse City East Junior High. He had also been scheduled to talk Friday at Central High School and West Junior High but bad weather kept him in Detroit until that morning and scrubbed the other appearances. Walker is the nephew of State Representative Howard Walker of Traverse City.
Neither Tyler Walker nor his parents let his congenital disability and amputation of his legs at age four slow him down. Over the years, if Tyler needed a piece of equipment or an adaptation allow him to skateboard or whitewater canoe, for example, his dad, Jim, would invent or contrive something.
"I've pretty much found a way to do any sport possible,” said Walker, who later noted with typical dry humor: "As a member of the United States Disabled Ski Team, we're the equivalent of the Ski Team, we just are missing more limbs than they are.”
Besides the Paralympics last year, Walker competed in the World Cup and garnered first place for the giant slalom in 2006. To him, the media exposure, travel, medals and even meeting President George Bush all pale in comparison to the rush of hurtling down a mountain, keeping balance as he's slapped by gates, leaning into a curve or taking air over a jump.
"When you come down, the crowd just explodes,” said Walker of his 75-miles-per-hour finishes.
The mono-ski to which Walker is strapped has a motorcycle shock in the middle to mimic the balancing and absorbing movements of the knee and legs. This adaptation allows the skier to transfer the energy of a turn into the ski and stay in control.
A skier, eighth grader Carly Moore was impressed by both Walker's equipment for the slopes and his talent using them.
"I think it's great that he can ski and be disabled, normal skiers absorb with their knees but he uses his mechanics,” she said.
To Walker, however, his life is not about disability as using an alternate set of tools — whether on the slopes in the classroom or at home.
"I don't consider myself disabled at all. I have just as much ability as you guys, I just use different equipment,” he told the students. "If we were going down the sidewalk, I could go much quicker. I've gone faster than cars in my wheelchair — it's kind of dangerous but it's a lot of fun.”
For more information on Tyler Walker, see his Web site at www.tylerwalker.org.