Leading by example in game, set, life.

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

Wheelchair tennis sounds harmless enough, until you find yourself dodging missiles launched from a guy like Randy Snow.

Snow, if you don't know, is basically the Pete Sampras of wheelchair tennis, holder of 10 U.S. Open titles in the sport. He won gold medals in singles and doubles at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the only man to accomplish that.

He's got silver and bronze in racing and wheelchair basketball, too. You'll find Snow in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, next to Muhammad Ali and Mary Lou Retton.

Not that all the accomplishments have curbed the tan Texan's taste for mischief, mind you. He still likes to send the occasional tennis ball whistling past your ear at duck-for-cover speeds.

"It's the key to life - passion," the 46-year-old Snow said Friday during a quick clinic at the YMCA tennis courts in south Eugene. "When we do the things we love to do, we have more energy. It makes life enjoyable. It's a precious thing.

"And guess what?" he added. "We've got to return it (to others)."

Snow retired from competition in 2000 and makes his living these days teaching leadership to corporate audiences.

He came to Eugene this week to teach diversity and team-building to city departments, and a friend there talked Snow into a little court time at the Y. He was an instant draw for tennis junkies from as far as Portland, be they in - or not in - wheelchairs.

"Everybody knows Randy Snow," said Curt Nibler, 37, an athlete with paralysis from Eugene. "He's the man."

Already a promising tennis player at 16, Snow was moving hay with a tractor when a 1,000-pound bale fell from a lift and crushed his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He endured the full range of emotions that followed - blame, denial, depression, anger - and an athlete emerged.

Snow discovered wheelchair basketball at the University of Texas. The fierceness of the play changed everything for him - he realized his life could again be about performance and competition, and he dived in.

Snow's career in sport followed a trajectory of some elite athletes: the obsessive, single-minded commitment to training, the attainment of the highest accomplishments, the lows of alcohol and drug dependency, the stress of dealing with it all and the relief of retirement.

Along the way, Snow learned a critical lesson: One person's wheelchair is another person's self-doubt. Or victim mentality. Or fear.

"We all have our hay-baling accidents," he said. "What are we going to do about it?"

Snow used his paralysis to inspire others who struggle with their own demons, be they physical or mental.

On the court, he's a chatterbox with a 1,000-watt smile who sends his wheelchair troops through baseline workouts while ripping the occasional scorching forehand just to make sure you're paying attention.

In wheelchair tennis, players are allowed an extra bounce before the ball must be struck; that's about the only variation. Also, players with and without wheelchairs can match up against one another.

Eugene boasts one of the nation's top young players in Matt Farmen, 17, of Sheldon High School.

Farmen wasn't on hand Friday, however. He's in Brazil right now, his parents said, playing in what amounts to the Davis Cup for wheelchair players, the World Team Cup.

That's the kind of thing sure to make Snow proud.

"I'd rather be paralyzed and have a good attitude," he said, "than be able-bodied and have a paralyzed mind."

CAPTION(S):

Randy Snow holds a wheelchair tennis workshop at the YMCA Family Tennis Center with Kanya Sesser, 13, of Portland, and Mark Hansen of Eugene. "It's the key to life - passion. When we do the things we love to do, we have more energy. It makes life enjoyable. It's a precious thing." - Randy Snow, winner of 10 U.S. Open wheelchair tennis titles