kepdawg
01-25-2009, 12:33 AM
Richardson's Dorsey is solid like a rock
10:48 PM CST on Saturday, January 24, 2009
By BRAD TOWNSEND / The Dallas Morning News
btownsend@dallasnews.com
The tattoo etched across Dominique Dorsey's upper right arm reads "Hold My Own."
This is the motto he carries through hardscrabble circumstances and onto the basketball court for Richardson High, on an arm that has no hand.
Somehow, 17-year-old Dorsey more than compensates, as a 5-9 junior guard and as a so-dubbed Child of Desert Storm.
He is among the generation of children with birth defects who were born to veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, but perhaps the only one playing a high school varsity sport with a partial limb.
"I don't know too much about it," he says. "I haven't really asked. All the stuff I've been through, I've just got to look forward, stay positive and don't worry about nothing else." He speaks softly and rarely expounds, which helps explain why Eagles teammates and coach Travis Edwards glean little beyond the Dominique moments that inspire them daily.
They have watched him start 12 of their 23 games, score 57 points, snare 17 rebounds, deal 12 assists and tenaciously defend bigger players – impervious to gawks and murmurs from the stands.
"Someone once told me, 'The only disability is a bad attitude,' " says Edwards, who during his three seasons at Richardson has watched Dorsey climb from freshman to JV to varsity. "I've never heard him say, 'I can't.' "
Edwards describes Dorsey as a "yes-sir, no-sir" 3.0-grade-point-average student who is popular among classmates and teachers but mum about his background and home life.
Few, if any, on Richardson's campus are aware that when Dorsey was 4, he appeared on Leeza Gibbons' nationally syndicated talk show.
Or that Dorsey's father, Darren, served in the Gulf War. Or that Dominique hasn't spoken to his father since 2004 or seen him since 2000.
Dominique's mother, Donita, scrapes to make the $655 monthly rent for their two-bedroom, one-bath northeast Dallas apartment. She budgets in the $45 late fee while counting days between paychecks from her job at a hospital-billing company.
Edwards suspects Dominique is among a handful of Richardson players who may not eat regularly, which is why he keeps one of his office drawers stocked with healthy snacks.
Donita hustles to get Dominique to school and Saturday morning practices, but Edwards had not met her until The News photographed and videotaped the Jan. 16 home win over Molina. She says Dominique has a "phobia" about her watching him play, but says she sneaked in to several of his JV games last season.
Until this year, Dominique also played strong safety in football, even getting a call-up to Richardson's varsity for the final game his sophomore year. He voiced no objection to her attending football games. Nor did she fret about her only child getting hurt.
"Tough as he is? No," laughs Donita, 43. "He's as solid as a rock. Everything I worried about when he was born just washed out the window.
"We always say this: 'He has a hand, but we just can't see it.' "
A man changed by war
Donita Sims and Darren Dorsey grew up in the same Chicago neighborhood and married in 1987. They spent several years in Germany, where the Army stationed Darren.
They returned to the States in 1989, to Fort Hood in Killeen. They were settling in Dallas when, in the summer of 1990, Darren was deployed to the Persian Gulf.
Darren returned to Dallas in the spring of 1991. The Gulf War was over, but for Darren and many of the other 700,000 American veterans, the battle was not.
"I'd known him all my life," Donita says. "But when he came back from over there, it was like he was a totally different person."
On Jan. 23, 1992, Dominique Xavier Dorsey was born at Parkland Hospital with meromelia, the term describing the congenital absence of part of an arm or leg. Dominique's right arm ends just below the elbow.
After the initial shock and concern, Donita says her husband mentally "took a turn for the worse." She says he left the family about a year later.
Dominique recalls that during his childhood, his father would "pop up about once every six months, buy me stuff and then leave."
During Dominique's infant and toddler years, Donita noted familiar veterans-family accounts trickling in from around the country. In November 1995, Life magazine chronicled "The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm."
In February 1996, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton held a book signing in Dallas. Donita and another Gulf War veteran's wife, Shana Clark, asked Clinton to look into the postwar birth defects and gave her their phone number.
In addition to Gibbons' show, Donita, Dominique and other moms and kids with birth defects were flown in to appear on Good Morning Seattle , as well as at Walt Disney World.
For years, U.S. government and military officials called such reports inconclusive. But a 2001 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Johns Hopkins suggested that children of Gulf War veterans were two to three times more likely as those of other vets to have birth defects.
Last November, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses produced a 452-page report identifying exposure to toxic chemicals as a reason roughly one in four veterans experienced Gulf War syndrome – typified by immune system disorders and birth defects.
"It's kind of touchy," Donita says. "A lot of people don't want to talk about it.
"For the most part, I consider myself blessed because some of those kids are really messed up."
The can-do kid
Dominique was a patient at Scottish Rite, where, when he was about 5, doctors fitted him for a prosthesis. "He'd just take it off and hand it to me," laughs Donita, adding that Dominique learned how to ride a bike and roller skate before other kids his age.
He also quickly learned how to tie his shoes, serve himself in buffet lines and other functions most take for granted.
"He's always been very independent," says his maternal grandmother, Doris Sims, who lives near San Marcos and phones him daily to ask about his grades. "I was flabbergasted about him tying his shoes.
"And when kids asked him about his arm, he would always say, 'I was born like this' and keep going."
Dominique had always played football and basketball, but this year he chose to drop football and pursue a goal of earning a college basketball scholarship.
Obviously, opponents overplay his left side. But when necessary he can switch over and take a couple of dribbles with his partial right arm. He also can use that arm to help catch passes and guide his shots.
During a JV game against Wylie last year, he mimicked his favorite NBA player, Allen Iverson, during a two-on-one fast break, faking a pass and laying the ball up in one smooth motion.
"Some people try to get in my head," he says. "I'll deflect a pass, and they'll be like, 'Come on, man, you've only got one arm.' I've heard coaches talking to their players like, 'How could you let that happen?' "
Edwards says Dominique is one of Richardson's better defenders, in part because of an upper-body strength that enabled him to bench-press 225 pounds during spring football practice last year.
He has a girlfriend, is a prolific text-messager, and if he feels a void left by his father, he doesn't let on.
In 2004, Donita and Dominique were on their way back from a family reunion when they stopped to see his fraternal grandmother, who phoned Darren so that father and son could have a short conversation. That was their last talk.
Dominique says his father probably "would be very surprised" to hear his son is playing varsity basketball. Phone messages left last week by The News with two of Darren Dorsey's relatives went unreturned.
Meanwhile, Doris Sims drove up to watch her grandson play Friday night against Carrollton Creekview. Dominique held his own, all right, making three 3-pointers and scoring a season-high nine points.
On his birthday.
LINK (http://www.hsgametime.com/dfw/sharedcontent/dws/content/topstories/stories/012509dnspohsbkbrichardson.3bde3ba.html)
There is a video at the link.
10:48 PM CST on Saturday, January 24, 2009
By BRAD TOWNSEND / The Dallas Morning News
btownsend@dallasnews.com
The tattoo etched across Dominique Dorsey's upper right arm reads "Hold My Own."
This is the motto he carries through hardscrabble circumstances and onto the basketball court for Richardson High, on an arm that has no hand.
Somehow, 17-year-old Dorsey more than compensates, as a 5-9 junior guard and as a so-dubbed Child of Desert Storm.
He is among the generation of children with birth defects who were born to veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, but perhaps the only one playing a high school varsity sport with a partial limb.
"I don't know too much about it," he says. "I haven't really asked. All the stuff I've been through, I've just got to look forward, stay positive and don't worry about nothing else." He speaks softly and rarely expounds, which helps explain why Eagles teammates and coach Travis Edwards glean little beyond the Dominique moments that inspire them daily.
They have watched him start 12 of their 23 games, score 57 points, snare 17 rebounds, deal 12 assists and tenaciously defend bigger players – impervious to gawks and murmurs from the stands.
"Someone once told me, 'The only disability is a bad attitude,' " says Edwards, who during his three seasons at Richardson has watched Dorsey climb from freshman to JV to varsity. "I've never heard him say, 'I can't.' "
Edwards describes Dorsey as a "yes-sir, no-sir" 3.0-grade-point-average student who is popular among classmates and teachers but mum about his background and home life.
Few, if any, on Richardson's campus are aware that when Dorsey was 4, he appeared on Leeza Gibbons' nationally syndicated talk show.
Or that Dorsey's father, Darren, served in the Gulf War. Or that Dominique hasn't spoken to his father since 2004 or seen him since 2000.
Dominique's mother, Donita, scrapes to make the $655 monthly rent for their two-bedroom, one-bath northeast Dallas apartment. She budgets in the $45 late fee while counting days between paychecks from her job at a hospital-billing company.
Edwards suspects Dominique is among a handful of Richardson players who may not eat regularly, which is why he keeps one of his office drawers stocked with healthy snacks.
Donita hustles to get Dominique to school and Saturday morning practices, but Edwards had not met her until The News photographed and videotaped the Jan. 16 home win over Molina. She says Dominique has a "phobia" about her watching him play, but says she sneaked in to several of his JV games last season.
Until this year, Dominique also played strong safety in football, even getting a call-up to Richardson's varsity for the final game his sophomore year. He voiced no objection to her attending football games. Nor did she fret about her only child getting hurt.
"Tough as he is? No," laughs Donita, 43. "He's as solid as a rock. Everything I worried about when he was born just washed out the window.
"We always say this: 'He has a hand, but we just can't see it.' "
A man changed by war
Donita Sims and Darren Dorsey grew up in the same Chicago neighborhood and married in 1987. They spent several years in Germany, where the Army stationed Darren.
They returned to the States in 1989, to Fort Hood in Killeen. They were settling in Dallas when, in the summer of 1990, Darren was deployed to the Persian Gulf.
Darren returned to Dallas in the spring of 1991. The Gulf War was over, but for Darren and many of the other 700,000 American veterans, the battle was not.
"I'd known him all my life," Donita says. "But when he came back from over there, it was like he was a totally different person."
On Jan. 23, 1992, Dominique Xavier Dorsey was born at Parkland Hospital with meromelia, the term describing the congenital absence of part of an arm or leg. Dominique's right arm ends just below the elbow.
After the initial shock and concern, Donita says her husband mentally "took a turn for the worse." She says he left the family about a year later.
Dominique recalls that during his childhood, his father would "pop up about once every six months, buy me stuff and then leave."
During Dominique's infant and toddler years, Donita noted familiar veterans-family accounts trickling in from around the country. In November 1995, Life magazine chronicled "The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm."
In February 1996, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton held a book signing in Dallas. Donita and another Gulf War veteran's wife, Shana Clark, asked Clinton to look into the postwar birth defects and gave her their phone number.
In addition to Gibbons' show, Donita, Dominique and other moms and kids with birth defects were flown in to appear on Good Morning Seattle , as well as at Walt Disney World.
For years, U.S. government and military officials called such reports inconclusive. But a 2001 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Johns Hopkins suggested that children of Gulf War veterans were two to three times more likely as those of other vets to have birth defects.
Last November, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses produced a 452-page report identifying exposure to toxic chemicals as a reason roughly one in four veterans experienced Gulf War syndrome – typified by immune system disorders and birth defects.
"It's kind of touchy," Donita says. "A lot of people don't want to talk about it.
"For the most part, I consider myself blessed because some of those kids are really messed up."
The can-do kid
Dominique was a patient at Scottish Rite, where, when he was about 5, doctors fitted him for a prosthesis. "He'd just take it off and hand it to me," laughs Donita, adding that Dominique learned how to ride a bike and roller skate before other kids his age.
He also quickly learned how to tie his shoes, serve himself in buffet lines and other functions most take for granted.
"He's always been very independent," says his maternal grandmother, Doris Sims, who lives near San Marcos and phones him daily to ask about his grades. "I was flabbergasted about him tying his shoes.
"And when kids asked him about his arm, he would always say, 'I was born like this' and keep going."
Dominique had always played football and basketball, but this year he chose to drop football and pursue a goal of earning a college basketball scholarship.
Obviously, opponents overplay his left side. But when necessary he can switch over and take a couple of dribbles with his partial right arm. He also can use that arm to help catch passes and guide his shots.
During a JV game against Wylie last year, he mimicked his favorite NBA player, Allen Iverson, during a two-on-one fast break, faking a pass and laying the ball up in one smooth motion.
"Some people try to get in my head," he says. "I'll deflect a pass, and they'll be like, 'Come on, man, you've only got one arm.' I've heard coaches talking to their players like, 'How could you let that happen?' "
Edwards says Dominique is one of Richardson's better defenders, in part because of an upper-body strength that enabled him to bench-press 225 pounds during spring football practice last year.
He has a girlfriend, is a prolific text-messager, and if he feels a void left by his father, he doesn't let on.
In 2004, Donita and Dominique were on their way back from a family reunion when they stopped to see his fraternal grandmother, who phoned Darren so that father and son could have a short conversation. That was their last talk.
Dominique says his father probably "would be very surprised" to hear his son is playing varsity basketball. Phone messages left last week by The News with two of Darren Dorsey's relatives went unreturned.
Meanwhile, Doris Sims drove up to watch her grandson play Friday night against Carrollton Creekview. Dominique held his own, all right, making three 3-pointers and scoring a season-high nine points.
On his birthday.
LINK (http://www.hsgametime.com/dfw/sharedcontent/dws/content/topstories/stories/012509dnspohsbkbrichardson.3bde3ba.html)
There is a video at the link.