new thread
Another "story of someone who threw off the shackles and became his true self" (to quote Jason's excellent phraseology in the thread about Christian attitudes).
I am a huge fan of John Zimmerman, and have been following his career since he was a teenager making his debut as a national competitive figure skater. John has told his story many times, of his fight with the US Association of Figure Skating, who gave him a lot of flack, when a then teenage John chose to let his hair grow. It seems the USAFS is a bit rigid and old fashioned and prefers the masculine clean-cut male skater to represent them. As soon as Johns' hair began creeping down his shoulders, the powers-that-be at the USAFS began hassling and asking when he was going to get a hair cut. When competition events came up, they pretty much told him that he could not skate with that hair, and insisted he cut it. He didn't. As he has put it, "The war was on".
The USAFS continued to pressure the teenager, but Zimmerman was adamant that he was NOT cutting his hair. He said it took quite a few years before the skating officials finally gave in and stopped pressuring him. Winner of 3 US Gold Medals and many silver and bronzes, Zimmerman, now in his late 30's, still to this day has his shoulder-length blond locks. His fight to keep his right to wear his hair long, opened the door for future skaters like Ben Agosto, who wore long brown curls on the ice. There's nothing quite as enjoyable as watching Zimmerman's long blond locks flying as he spins on the ice.
Justcarol, what a inspiring story, he is a great american athlete and a great role model, thankyou for sharing. your friend James
Hi Carol,
That is a very inspiring story about John and his fight with the powers that be at the Association.I'll never understand the hardheadedness of these people who probably don't even know what the real world is like.John is an amazing man and his hair is beautiful:)Thanks for posting this in support of Jason's thread.
Now if we can get the NHL to let hockey players grow out their locks we might see another barrier broken;)
Mark
Hey, Jaromir Jagr had a world-class mullet.
John Z's hair _is_ pretty, gotta love blond guys. :) I was thinking about posting about John Z prior to Jason's thread, it was providential!
How about MLB, don't know any baseball players with long hair; or the NBA even, though I keep thinking there was somebody with long hair playing basketball. Longhair has been associated with surfing, and skateboarding/snowboarding for some time; but not so much in mainstream sports. The barriers are being broken, one longhaired athlete at a time.
Steinbrenner had a notorious anti-hair policy. Don Mattingly used to try to push the limits, but there's really no hair culture in baseball besides the Yankees (a lot of ex-Yankees have been known to go a little shaggier after they got traded; Judas^H^H^H^H^H Johnny Damon is the converse of that).
Wow! What a transformation! And a beard too!