Olympic Medalist Encourages Middle Schoolers to Make Good Choices

On Monday, The Century Council's Ask, Listen, Learn program and ’s Scholar Power Series held an assembly featuring Olympic athlete Apolo Ohno, winner of more medals than any other American in the Winter Olympics, and Congressman Jim Himes. Titled “Making the Right Choices,” the assembly discussed healthy lifestyle decisions and the dangers of underage drinking.

“You’re in a phase in your life right now where you’re going to start to see… you might go to a party and you might see alcohol,” Himes told the crowd. “You’re going to make decisions that affect your body.”

Himes talked to the audience about his time volunteering on an ambulance during his teenage years and how seeing fatalities from drunk driving affected the decisions he made growing up.

“I said to myself at that age, 'I’m not going to get myself in that kind of trouble.' I just have too much respect for my own future and the future of people who might be in cars with me,” Himes said. "There are a lot of good reasons to make good choices...you want to keep your body healthy and be able to do the things you love... and if you do that really well and you work really hard, maybe someday you'll win a lot of Olympic medals like my friend Apolo Ohno."

Ohno took the microphone and at once enchanted the audience with stories about being an Olympic athlete and advice for their teenage years.

"I had no idea I had this much potential... but I had a lot of help from the people around me," Ohno said. "If it wasn't for the decisions I made as a young athlete, as a young person about your age... saying no to drugs helped me to achieve my dreams and to realize my dream of becoming an Olympic athlete."

Ohno asked the crowd how many of them played sports — just about every hand went up — and how many knew how to ice skate —again, just about every middle schooler in the room. He then talked about the importance of being healthy in order to play sports, meet goals, and follow dreams.

“Whoever in your life that’s close to you and you can talk to, talk about these challenges,” Ohno said. “You’re going to have the confidence to say, you know what, I’m going to make the decision and I know this is the right decision.”

Ohno stood alongside Cloonan students laughing and cheering them on as they tried out a video game that required them to run in place and dodge obstacles in their paths. They also answered questions from the game about healthy lifestyles and making good choices. The video game was created by The Century Council and donated to Cloonan Middle School for students to continue to play in the future.

“We can’t always win," Ohno said. "If we win or lose — it’s not always up to us — what we can control is how hard we try. If I come in fourth place, I don’t want to think 'I wish I would have trained a little harder.' I want to cross the finish line and have zero regrets [and] be able to say, 'It just wasn’t my day.'"

Ohno took questions from the audience, discussing his career and how he identified his own dreams growing up, including how he first came to be introduced to speed skating.

“I was 12 years old and the first time I saw it, my reaction was that is the coolest sport I've ever seen in my life," he said. "It looked like they’re flying, it looked like 'The Matrix' — that was the first time I'd seen the sport and I was hooked.”

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