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2004 Paralympian Moves and Motivates Young Women
By Connie Leonard
// WAVE-TV 3, Louisville, Ky.
// July 14, 2005
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| Photo by WAVE-TV |
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The 2005 Yum! Brands/Pepsi Women's $50,000 Tennis Tournament is in full swing at the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center on the U of L Campus. The event features the talents of one of the top players in the world, and as WAVE 3's Connie Leonard tells us, she's inspiring young women of all ages to follow her lead.
With $50,000 in play, it's a women's tournament with plenty of moxie. "Our goal in tennis, and within the Women's Sports Foundation Go! Go!Go! Project is to get young girls active and moving," said featured national athlete and tennis instructor Karin Korb.
Korb, of Atlanta, believes so much in that goal, she proposed a wheelchair tennis project to her Kentucky friend and fellow player David Hartsek.
"I really wanted to get a camp just for young females, an empowerment camp," Korb recalled, "and I just said, you know, 'let's call it Disabled Divas!'"
Paralyzed in a car wreck, Hartsek, a father of two young girls, agreed it was a great idea for players of all abilities.
"They come away with a whole new perspective of people in wheelchairs," he said, "I'm not only there because I enjoy it, but to show other people they can do it as well."
From the idea, "Divas in the Bluegrass" was born: an exhibition and 2-day camp led by Korb, a 2004 Paralympian.
"She's very impressive to watch." said Louisvillian Lauren Reynolds.
Reynolds has never tried a sport, but was easily impressed and encouraged, watching Korb manipulate her wheelchair, being mobile without the use of her legs. "I was thinking oh, man, I want to have arms like that and be that tough when I hit the ball!" she said.
With Korb's leadership, 21-year-old Lauren knows it's never too late -- she knows Korb, who was paralyzed in a gymnastics accident, was 27 before she ever picked up a tennis racket.
This year, Korb is ranked 2nd in the nation and 12th in the world. She also gave tennis tournament director Duane Parker quite the workout.
"She's out here killing me!" he joked.
Thirteen-year-old Mackenzie Soldan also looks up to Korb.
The wheelchair-bound Soldan wrote an essay called "What Ability Means To Me." That essay won her an upcoming August trip to the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, sponsored by Frazier Rehab Institute.
"It means, like, having the strength to do anything you want to, no matter what your disability is," Soldan explained.
With that, Korb is already teaching more than just wheelchair tennis. The poise and confidence the girls see in her, they begin to see in themselves.
"What I do on the court behaviorally are the things I do in my life," Korb said, "and they get that. Kids are kids. No matter what the shape, no matter what the size, they get it."
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