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63 °F Forecast | Road Cams Monday, September 20, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 10, 2003 Despite missing both of her legs below the knees, Crater�s Rachel Tappero swims the longest and toughest event, the 500-yard freestyle. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Against all odds Crater’s Rachel Tappero was not the fastest swimmer in this past weekend’s SOC district meet, but her perseverance made the senior the most popular By TIM TROWER Mail Tribune The mammoth green board is there for one purpose, to take the measure of mortals. Block letters. Blinking numbers. A specter of authority that is not to be trifled with. It spits out grades and tells the worth of its minions, the swimmers in the pool below who are trying desperately to please the gaudy green giant. They stare longingly at it. It could care less. It has little use for the human element. It’s a scoreboard, and in nearly every case, it is reliable, final. The board tells you where you stand. You cannot argue. That’s what makes the relationship between Rachel Tappero and Big Green so intriguing. The one instrument in the building designed to tell us what we need to know about an individual is the one thing that doesn’t measure up against the 3-foot Thai girl who was born without the lower halves of her legs. It’s no more effective than a solar-powered calculator in a dark room, a labeler without tape. The scoreboard shouldn’t be used to indicate Tappero’s worth anymore than a yardstick should be used to determine the bounds of imagination and determination. Sure, Big Green was important to Tappero, and the Crater High senior stared skyward during the Southern Oregon Conference district meet this past weekend at Southern Oregon University. She’s a swimmer. They all do. She saw a number that, truth be told, disappointed her. She wanted to go faster, had gone faster. Never mind that, a month earlier, she willfully chose for her swimming swan song the longest, toughest event, the grueling 500-yard freestyle that routinely beats down the strongest of strokes and the healthiest of kicks. Swimmers who take for granted being on top of the water because of powerful legs feel as if their innards are jello by race’s end. No matter. Tappero was in disfavor with Big Green, and it her. On the bright side, no one else noticed. They saw beyond the machine. They knew that the qualities Tappero has in spades are ones that fall to the floor when Big Green shuffles. That explained the applause, the steady, exuberant clapping, the shouts of encouragement and the beaming faces as she finished her 500 free preliminary heat on Friday. Some rooters were competitors who moments earlier shared the pool with her. Their legs propelled them through the race faster, allowed them time to pull themselves from the water, dry off, then, like all others, turn their attention to the solitary figure in Lane 1. Teammates and foes cheered as wildly as anyone for this relentless bundle of stick-to-itiveness. She placed 29th in a field of the same number, her time of 12 minutes, 25.29 seconds more than three minutes slower than the next-to-last finisher. She had established PRs before. It was 11:32.84 going in and, this time, refused to budge. Still, they cheered. "Out of all the races today," said her coach, Mike Heckert, "she will, without a doubt, get the biggest applause. But that’s always the case." People like to see strength in others, defiance pushing against adversity. Tappero was in the water, but she bathed others in her courage. Too mushy? Not if you saw her. Certainly not if you met her. "Who cares if you’re different?" she says, sitting on the floor of a hallway just outside the pool area, the laces of tennis shoes that resemble cup holders dangling in front of her. "I want to show people that just because you’re different doesn’t mean you can’t do a lot more than people think." Her eyes are bright, her smile fast enough even to please Big Green. A 20-year-old "super" senior, Tappero also contends with learning disabilities, particularly reading and math. She’s now in a transition program to ready her for life after school. She plans to get a job and move out on her own. It’ll be a test she’ll meet head on. Heckert, for one, knows that from experience. He’s seen it in the pool. The 100 butterfly, the 200 free, they are not picnics, but Tappero tried them. Now the 500 free. "The ability to pick out personal challenges is something she’s really good at," he says. "She’s never one to sit back and do something because it’s easy." Tappero came to the United States at age 6, adopted by a family in Kentucky. Two years later, she was taken in by Chris and Carla Tappero, who live in Sams Valley with their biological daughter and five other adopted special needs children. Before she arrived in America, she had surgery for internal disorders and to fix webbing on a left hand with small fingers. Once here, she underwent spinal surgery. Since then, she’s received prosthetic legs that raise her to about 5 feet. She doesn’t use crutches. "She’s one of the few bilaterals above the knee to be able to make it around," says Chris Tappero. "She kind of balances on them. It’s like walking around on stilts with hinges in the middle. But she’s been able to do pretty well at that." Rachel Tappero’s pioneering spirit notwithstanding, her family never would have guessed she’d be on a high school swim team. "When I was very little, I was so afraid of the water," she says. "When my parents were teaching me to swim, I was afraid to get in the water even though they held me." No wonder she took it up in high school. It was a challenge. At first, she had difficulty keeping her legs from sinking, which in turn made it hard for her to take a breath. A quick learner, she overcame that problem in about a month. That solved, she dabbled in the butterfly, a stroke that made her "feel like I was flying," and she’d practice flip turns, the better to push off the wall. "It’s hard when you don’t have lower legs," she shrugs. Now, she loves to swim and is considering trying the Paralympics. Until then, she has the appreciation of her admirers to reflect upon. Like the Ashland state qualifier who nodded in Tappero’s direction as she stood by the pool Friday and said, "Man, she’s got a lot of guts." And the Roseburg swimmer she didn’t know from Adam who plopped next to her in that hallway floor. He had to tell her how much he respected her, that he started to cramp up in his own 500 free a while earlier and wanted to quit. Until he thought of her. "Every time," she says, after the boy walks off, "when people come up and tell me, ‘You are incredible,’ it just kind of makes me want to cry. I tell them thank-you." For the human element. Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities