Early Life
Speedie was born in Odell, Illinois, but attended high school in Utah. As a child he had Perthes Disease, a condition where growth or loss of bone mass in the hip joint affects blood supply to the area. He had to wear a brace for four years to correct the condition; one of his legs came out shorter than the other. Despite his struggle with the disease, Speedie became a star athlete at South High School in Salt Lake City, playing football, basketball and track. He was the center on the school's basketball team and was named to a list of Salt Lake's best athletes as a halfback on the football team. Getting out of the braces "was like turning a frisky colt out to pasture after a year in a box stall," Speedie once said. "I had such a backlog of athletic ambition that I wanted to play football, basketball, and track all at one time."
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)