Scott Hamilton: A Champion Who CARES

Figure skating legend Scott Hamilton is using his experience with cancer to ease the way for others.

“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” Scott Hamilton made worldwide headlines when he spoke these words in 1997, and this quote is still associated with him today. Such a powerful personal philosophy would seem to explain how he had achieved the rank of top male figure skater in the world by the early 1980s, despite some daunting early obstacles.

As a young child, Hamilton developed a mysterious illness that caused him to stop growing, but he continued taking skating lessons and playing hockey—and the illness eventually disappeared. In 1976, at the age of 17, financial pressures forced him to quit competitive skating until an anonymous couple stepped forward to sponsor him as a 1980 Olympic hopeful. Theirs was a good investment, as Hamilton went on to earn a fifth-place finish at those Olympics, followed by four consecutive national and world championships and the 1984 Olympic gold medal.

But when Hamilton spoke his famous words about the importance of attitude, he was not reflecting on his success as a skater. He was talking about overcoming another, even more serious obstacle: testicular cancer. Before he revealed his diagnosis in 1997, the public knew him as the much-beloved athlete and entertainer who brought figure skating into their towns and eventually their living rooms through national tours such as Stars on Ice, which was his brainchild.

People loved flipping on the TV to see Hamilton skate with his distinctive artistry and flair, or to hear his commentary on skating at the Olympic Games. Thanks to his candor about his diagnosis, they began to know him as a cancer survivor, too, and to see how the same attitude that propelled him to championships also helped him get through the rigors of treatment and recovery.

Now, more than 10 years later, Hamilton sees an important parallel between those two roles, he recently told Caring4Cancer during an interview at his home outside of Nashville, Tenn. After becoming the best male figure skater in the world in the 1980s and surviving cancer in the 1990s—accomplishments many might have regarded as well-deserved endings—Hamilton was left with the desire to make the journey easier for those who would come after him.

 “I wanted the next male figure skater to have it a little easier than I did in terms of trying to break in, have an audience and public respect, and being able to build a career because it was limited for male figure skaters for a long time,” Hamilton says. “As a cancer survivor I have that same mentality: wanting to make it better for the next person going through this.”

That mentality led to the founding in 1999 of the Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative (Cancer Alliance for Research, Education, and Survivorship), a thriving partnership with the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center. Scott CARES focuses on patient education, mentoring, and fund raising for research.

Outlook is a Choice

In the spring of 1997, Hamilton was in the middle of a national Stars on Ice tour when he decided to see a doctor because of persistent abdominal pain. What he thought was a stomach ulcer turned out to be testicular cancer, and within 24 hours he found himself meeting with oncologists at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. After the diagnosis, he recalls, he faced two challenges: learning as much as he could about his condition, and figuring out how he was going to get through the chemotherapy—not just physically, but “emotionally and mentally,” to use his words.

“Cancer and its treatment challenge your ability to stay positive, keep it fun and friendly, and have that quality of life that you deserve,” Hamilton says. “I learned that you can choose how you feel on a particular day, and if you just turn something slightly—like you might turn a piece of glass and get a rainbow—you change your perspective.

“It’s amazing,” he marvels. “In times of real down periods, it’s a challenge on every level, but it’s how you deal with it that really defines your experience with chemotherapy.”

Hamilton had his fair share of “down periods” and even felt like giving up when he reached his third round of chemotherapy. The side effects of one medication in particular, he recalls, made him feel so awful that he would go right to bed. Although he could not control how he was feeling physically, he found that he could control his outlook. Hamilton says he accepted the fact that “life isn’t fair” and focused on what he could gain from the experience.

“If life was fair, it wouldn’t be interesting,” he observes. “It was almost a game of optimism. Challenge me, tell me something is horrible, and I’ll find good in it. Tell me something is going to defeat me and I’ll find a way to beat it.”

Whether faced with a situation as difficult as cancer or even life’s much smaller daily challenges, Hamilton believes we all have three choices: “succumb, adapt, or evolve.” In other words, we can give up, just deal with the situation until it is over, or take it and become better for it.

“I love the evolve,” he says. “I love, ‘Give me this—I’m going to get through it, and I’m going to be a much richer, better, more in-touch person than I’ve ever dreamed because of this. At times, this will be devastating, at times, horrible, but always a very challenging position I’ve been put in. I’m going to be better than I’ve ever been.
“Everybody would love to go there, but it’s a choice,” he adds. “Every single moment is what you make it.”

Finding the Hope . . . and the Humor

For Hamilton, a key step in cultivating such a positive, hopeful outlook during treatment was infusing humor and laughter into each day.

“I was full of comedic movies and bad practical jokes and Monty Python, and whatever I could put in my life during that time to keep it light and humor-filled,” he recalls.

 His nurses, doctors, and family and friends became part of the plan. During treatments, his nurses would keep things light—decorating IV poles with balloons and using fun Band-Aids. Hamilton also insisted that family and friends keep their visits happy and positive, and if they could not do that, he asked them not to come. He insists he was not in denial—he had lost his own mother to cancer—but that this was what he needed to get through the experience.

“I felt that my today, my tomorrow, my this minute, is completely up to me and what I want it to be, and so for caregivers, for friends, for family, I decided that some people weren’t going to be a part of my circle because I didn’t think they could handle it well, and they would be given information as it came in to honor the relationship,” he says. “Day-to-day, I only wanted people I could trust to keep it light and happy and optimistic.

“Getting through is the daily process of finding something wonderful and letting that be a part of your arsenal as much as the drugs that they’re using to fight this thing off,” he adds. 

Easing the Way for Others

 Shortly after finishing chemotherapy and undergoing surgery, Hamilton was not only training to get back on the ice, but also thinking about how he could ease the way for other people with cancer.  He established the Scott CARES Initiative with the Cleveland Clinic, which to date has raised $10 million for cancer research and also runs the website Chemocare.com and the 4th Angel Mentoring Program.

Hamilton recalls that while his doctors, nurses, and family and friends—his so-called “three angels”—were invaluable, they could never completely understand what he was going through. The 4th Angel Program matches patients with a cancer survivor of a similar background and age who can offer advice and support.

 “I felt there needed to be a fourth angel, and the fourth angel was someone that’s been there, done that, who can tell you what the experience is,” he says.

 In 2004, Hamilton once again found himself in the role of patient when he was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, which was treated successfully. Today he prefers to focus on his roles as husband to Tracie, whom he married in 2002, and father to two young sons, the second just born in January. He has made other major changes in his life, too, recently moving from Los Angeles to his wife’s hometown of Nashville and renewing his faith in Christianity. But still, he sometimes finds himself “sweating the small stuff”—which he says is a good sign.

 “You know you’ve really gotten through it when you start sweating the small stuff again, and the you catch yourself and say, ‘Oh, okay, whatever, I’ve been through worse, I’ll be just fine,” Hamilton says with his characteristic smile. “It’s up to you how you live your life second to second, and most of it is choice.”