MEDIA COVERAGE

SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE, October, 2005
"JIM MACLAREN INHALES DEEPLY while watching a replay of his acceptance of the 2005 Arthur Ashe Courage Award, presented at July’s ESPY Awards (the Oscars of the sporting world). As presenter Oprah Winfrey tells the star-studded audience MacLaren has “given new life to those around the world who need it most,” he swallows hard, overcome by the flooding memory of the evening’s “lovefest.”

Then Oprah cues a tribute video, and we learn why 42-year-old MacLaren is receiving the award, which recognizes individuals who “embody a toughness of spirit and never-give-up attitude.” Photos of a 300-pound, 6-foot-5 All-American football player, Yale student and aspiring actor in his early 20s flash across an immense screen. It is the Jim MacLaren before his life literally ended after he was hit by a 40,000-pound city bus. Pronounced dead at the accident scene, he awoke from a coma eight days later, his left leg missing below the knee."

Fast-forward a few years. MacLaren, supported by a prosthetic leg, becomes the top amputee triathlete in the world, completing the grueling Ironman and setting a marathon record among amputees. In 1993, his athletic career comes to another cruelly abrupt halt when he is again struck, this time by a van during a triathlon. Doctors declare him a quadriplegic.

“I saw the underworld,” says MacLaren of the mental aftermath of his second near-fatal accident. “But I made a conscious decision to choose life. Trauma compels you to make a decision about how you are going to live your life, and I told myself, ‘I must create a life.’ ”

In fashioning that new life as a motivational speaker, mentor and spokesperson for the Del Mar–based Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), which was established specifically for MacLaren, he has inspired thousands of “challenged” and able-bodied people.

“Jim epitomizes everything we support - an athlete who has faced the most incredible challenges and yet chooses to not give up,” says CAF president Jeffrey Essakow. “Jim has shared the message that despite facing the most severe adversity in life, through sheer guts and spirit you can lead a good quality of life.”

MacLaren is now able to walk short distances, earning a reputation as a medical miracle. A workout station equipped with a stationary bike in the corner of his downtown San Diego condo further belies the bleak medical diagnoses. Still, MacLaren lives outside the physical, beyond the confines of his embattled exterior.

“I am not my body,” he says. “I am a man, and I am alive. As alive as anyone who is jamming a basketball, scoring a touchdown or hugging their child.”

Choose Living Foundation • PO BOX 154, Akron,PA, 17501 • Tel 619.851.2902 • Fax 717.431.5506
Choose Living Foundation a project of Congressional District Programs, Inc – a registered 501(c)(3) public charity, Tax ID # 32-0189696