Gordon Banks

Banks' crowning glory came as the keeper when England won the 1966 World Cup, enhancing his reputation further with one of football's most iconic saves at the 1970 tournament, against Pelé during the group match against Brazil.

Driving home from Stoke’s Victoria Ground on October 21, 1972 after having treatment on a shoulder injury, he tried to overtake a lorry and collided head-on with a van coming the other way.
Banks suffered serious injuries to his forehead and right eye when the windscreen shattered. Surgeons could not save his sight.

Banks’ days as England keeper were over after nine years and 73 caps. So was his top-flight career with Stoke. But the club gave him a coaching job with the youth team and after a while he realised the good eye had trained itself to compensate for the loss of binocular vision.

‘At first the ball was slipping through my hands and hitting me on the nose,’ he says. ‘But as the years went by, they couldn’t get one past me. The reserves couldn’t either, then the first-team. After all those years, the good eye had now taken up the speed of the ball.’

Nearly five years after the accident, Banks made his comeback in America with Fort Lauderdale Strikers. He came up against Pele and Franz Beckenbauer once again, and was voted the league’s top goalkeeper in his final season, but that his achievement stretched far beyond that.

‘I had letters from parents whose child had lost an eye and it was lovely to be able to write back and say don’t worry because I played in America, and I can play golf and tennis. You’ll be able to do all these things.

‘People have come up to me since and said I wrote to them once when they were a kid and lost an eye, and I didn’t half give them some encouragement. That’s what I wanted to hear".

Harry Greb

Harry Greb, the Human Windmill, was one of the all-time great middleweights and pound-for-pound fighters that ever entered the ring.

In 1921 Kid Norfolk rammed a thumb into Greb's eye. The next day Greb complained of seeing lights of many colors. They were the last things he'd ever see with the injured eye. He had suffered a detached retina, did nothing about it, and lost half his sight.

Harry Greb, reigned as Middleweight champion from 1923 to 1926, and as "American" Light Heavyweight champion in 1922 and 1923. Most record books credit him with 304 professional bouts (although it's believed that he actually fought a hundred or so more) which ranks him as having the third most professional bouts of all time. Greb lost just eight times and was the only man to beat Gene Tunney.

Greb was inducted into the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1955 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990

After retiring, he went in to have plastic surgery for his nose, and slipped into a coma and died while coming out of anesthesia. It was then that doctors discovered that Harry Greb had fought the majority of his career blind in the right eye and perhaps only half vision in his "good" eye. Which perhaps explains that while living, his only known fear was going to sleep in the dark.


http://www.harrygreb.com/

Red Pollard

John (Red) Pollard's career as a jockey began when he started riding quarter horses as a youngster. From there he moved to the thoroughbreds, riding his first winner in 1926 and competing primarily at smaller tracks in the west.
His first stakes win came in 1931 when he rode horse named Up To Victory in the Agua Caliente Derby. In 1933 he won the King Edward Gold Cup at Woodbine aboard Dis Dat.

By 1936 Pollard was riding in the Detroit area. It was there that he became attached to owner Charles S. Howard, and Howard had just spent $7,500 to acquire a three-year-old named Seabiscuit.

Pollard and Seabiscuit became one of the most successful and popular teams of the day. Seabiscuit became champion handicapper at four, horse-of-the-year at five and world leading money-winner at seven. Among the stakes he won with Pollard aboard were the San Juan Capistrano, the Bay Meadows, the Brooklyn and the Massachusetts Handicap.

Pollard was dogged by injuries throughout his career and was unable to ride in the celebrated match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral. His most serious injury came in 1945, but he recovered and went on to ride until 1955, when Father Time finally forced Pollard to the sidelines for good after a remarkable 30-year career in the saddle. The famed rider died in early 1981.

He had been blinded in his right eye early in his career; not, as the 2003 film suggests, by the blows of an opponent during a match in his alternate career of boxing, but by a stray rock kicked up by an opposing horse in a race, in a time before most jockeys wore goggles to prevent just such incidents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Red_Pollard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabiscuit

Dick Vitale

Dick Vitale is a radio and television commentator for ESPN and ABC Sports known for his enthusiastic style.

Head coach of the Detroit Pistons (1978-79)
ESPN Sportscaster (1979-2006+)
Considered one of college basketball's top analysts.
Announced ESPN's first NCAA basketball game (December 5, 1979)
Hosts 'Dick Vitale's Fast Break'




Q: In kindergarten, you lost your vision in your left eye. Is that very difficult for you to deal with?

DV: I don't think so, because I don't know what it is really like to have 20/20 vision. I never had that my whole life. I do everything everybody else does.

Q: Heard you had a glass eye?

DV: I do not. But I am blind in my left eye. But I was told as a youngster that there was no need to take the eye out. I had problems with my eye, it was always infected and I could not go out in the sun. I missed my whole junior year of high school because I was out so many days. We get to a point where the doctor tells us he's going to correct the problem I had with the sun, but he said I would never see out of the eye but not to let anybody take the eye out, because you never know what could happen with modern technology. I have never known what it was like to have proper vision. I don't know what it is to miss.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Vitale

James Filson was fired as a Big Ten conference football referee in 2005, following a reporter's disclosure that, after a bad accident and the installment of a prosthetic, Filson had been officiating games with one eye. Filson filed a lawsuit in July, pointing out that he had been refereeing well enough for the previous four years that no one noticed his condition, but the conference said that, now that the word is out, he would be a magnet for criticism on close calls.

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html

In 2000, while Berard was playing for the Leafs in a game against the Senators, the stick of Marian Hossa clipped Berard in the right eye severely injuring it. In the hospital room after the incident, after being told he might lose his eye, Berard reportedly told his friends that he would play hockey again. Despite being optimistic about his future in hockey, he ended up receiving a $6.5-million settlement from his insurance company, what many considered to be a career-ending settlement.[1]

During the next season, he underwent seven eye operations, improving his vision in the eye to 20/600. He started working out again in April 2001 and started skating again months thereafter. He was later fitted with a contact lens that allowed him to meet the league's minimum vision requirement of 20/400.[1]

When it became apparent that he might play again, the Leafs stated they were interested in his services, but Berard opted to play for a team that was currently rebuilding and was a bit closer to his home of Woonsocket. Upon signing a tryout contract with the New York Rangers, Berard returned his insurance settlement and risked a comeback to the NHL. He played well enough that his tryout contract turned into a $2-million contract for the 2002-03 season.

He then enjoyed successful one-year stints with both the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks before signing with the Columbus Blue Jackets before the 2005-06 season. As a result of his perseverance, Berard was awarded the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for his dedication to hockey in 2004.

Bobby Convey


PREMIER STAR IS BLIND IN ONE EYE

By Jim Keat
Article from The News Of The World http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/sport/sport3.shtml

PREMIER League star Bobby Convey is playing in the top-flight even though he is BLIND in one eye.

Reading's American World Cup star has very little vision in his left eye following a childhood accident.

He has been officially diagnosed as "legally blind" in that eye but hopes to line up against champions Chelsea on Boxing Day.

Midfielder Convey said: "It's a pretty big deal but I don't really like to tell people. The only thing I really want is to one day be able to see out of both eyes."
Incredibly, if Convey closes his right eye, he stuggles to see clearly but he has kept the disability to himself.
He fell as a youngster, smashing his head and suffering optic nerve damage.

"When I was young, after the diagnosis, I was stopped from playing most sports," he added.

"For some reason the doctors didn't stop me playing soccer-I guess they knew if they tried to stop me I would play anyway."
Convey is supposed to wear protective goggles-yet chooses not to highlight his injury.
A Reading spokesman confirmed: "Yes, there is a problem with Bobby's vision but it's nothing he can't deal with.

"He hasn't got perfect vision in one eye but it doesn't affect his performances for Reading. He certainly doesn't make a fuss about it."

Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson said: "This isn't a matter that worries us at all, it is between Bobby and Reading.

"It's more health and safety than anything to do with us. He should, of course, be guided by his medical advice, if that includes wearing protective goggles, but that's really down to the player.

"We wish him well in the future."

The American international had a stunning start to the season as Steve Coppell's side beat the likes of Tottenham, Bolton and Manchester City.
He suffered a leg injury 10 weeks ago which has sidelined him since-but he is hoping to be back to face Jose Mourinho's side on Boxing Day.
It will continue a fairytale career which includes becoming the first ever Reading player to perform at the World Cup last summer when he appeared in all three of the USA's group matches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Convey

The Nawab of Pataudi

The Nawab of Pataudi - later Mansur Ali Khan - remains, unarguably, India's greatest captain ever. Taking over the reins of the Indian team at the age of 21, barely months after being involved in a car accident that would impair the sight in his right eye forever, he led India in 40 of 46 Tests he played in, and won 12 of them. But more than anything else, he led Indian cricket out of its morass of defeatism and instilled in his fellow cricketers a belief that winning was possible. Under him, India achieved their first overseas Test victory against New Zealand in 1967. This he achieved by playing, as had become customary with him, three spinners, because he reckoned, against conventional thinking, that India's only chance lay in playing to their strengths. As a batsman he was boldly adventurous and unorthodox for his times, and unafraid to loft the ball over the infield. His Test average was a modest 34, but what he could have achieved with complete sight is a matter of conjecture.

Hi All,

Thanks for sharing sportsmen Information.

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Please share it...

Jim McMahon, the 1980s Chicago quarterback. Anybody know how much vision loss he had in his injured eye?

All these years i've been watching Dickey V and i never knew he had a glass eye!! I didn't know about Jim McMahon either....I did a google search and found a couple of names that i don't think you mentioned. Maybe when you get a chance you can add them! Kirby Puckett and Wesley Walker