SoutheastHEALTH’s Journey Gala welcomes Scott Hamilton

Snow — and ice, fittingly — ushered in Olympic gold medalist and retired figure skating star, TV commentator, author, cancer and brain-tumor survivor Scott Hamilton on Saturday during SoutheastHEALTH Foundation’s third annual Journey Gala at the Drury Plaza Conference Center in Cape Girardeau.

The event benefits the SoutheastHEALTH Cancer Care Fund, which helps the cancer journey to be less stressful for patients during treatment.

Last year’s event raised more than $200,000, which provided free mammograms, nutritional supplements, medications and transportation service to those in need, the foundation’s website stated.

“Carnival Rio de Janeiro” was this year’s theme, which included dinner, charity auctions and a live music performance by Vote 4 Pedro.

Hamilton’s mother died from cancer, and that, along with his own battle prompted him to create the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation (Cancer Alliance for Research, Education and Survivorship).

Before taking the stage, Hamilton said it was amazing to see so many people coming together for one cause at the venue.

“Everybody hates cancer,” he said. “We all want it to be less toxic, have better outcomes. We’ve all lost someone to cancer, and it’s just one significant way to fight back.”

Standing before the crowd, Hamilton revisited witnessing the trials of his mother’s battle with cancer, him being diagnosed with testicular cancer and discovering he had brain tumors.

But none of those are reasons to quit, he said.

“ ... I fell into what I thought was depression. I tell men all the time, ‘Women are really good about their health.’ Men, we need to be really vigilant on our health. The earlier you get to something, the easier it is to deal with it.”

And men “got to do better,” he said.

Hamilton decided to get back into skating at the age of 51, just to see whether he could do it, he said.

“I started to go back to a gymnastic studio, learning the movement of doing a backflip again,” Hamilton said. “I had two weeks before I was going to do this big comeback show.”

When he arrived at the show, Hamilton said the crew was there cheering him on.

“I go out to do my part. I had trained a year, really hard, for this moment,” he said. “I do my first jump, I come around and do my second jump, and I fell.”

When he stood up, Hamilton said, his legs felt wobbly, and he was tired from producing, directing, planning the show and training.

“I got up, and if you ever saw me skating do this, you knew that I was trying to rest and get some air in my lungs,” Hamilton said, extending his right arm to the crowd. “I came around, and I looked square in the face of William Shatner.”

At that moment Hamilton burst out laughing, he said, because “there’s something you don’t see every day.” It gave him just enough relaxation, he said.

“I threw that backflip as hard as I could, and with 45 seconds left of the program, on drop-dead legs, 8,000 people helped me through it,” Hamilton said as the crowd cheered.

Hamilton said he estimates he has fallen 41,600 times throughout his career — and has gotten back up 41,600 times.

Sometimes the things that knock people down are important, he emphasized. Those things help to strengthen, guide and “they put us where we’re supposed to be,” he said.

“It’s about the getting up. You get up, no matter what it is. ... “Once you’re able to build that muscle in your character, nothing can defeat you. Nothing.”

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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