Ecstasy of De-Feet
Accident Survivor Plays Great Poker… With His Toes!
"Defeat" is a word that's simply not in William Rockwell's vocabulary. But "determination" definitely is. And if determination were the sole prerequisite for ascending to the pinnacle of poker, William would have a guaranteed future full of bracelets and C-notes.
Now 35, the Santee, California, resident first learned to play poker when he was around 18 and visiting Indian casinos in California. He played other casino games back then, mostly blackjack, but he knew the basics of poker, too, having played with buddies in home games. When he turned 21, William went to Vegas, walked into the Gold Spike downtown, and found a poker table going. The game was seven-card stud. William sat down at the table and "cleaned the old guys out and shut the game down." He instantly fell in love with "the roller-coaster ride," he says, so he started playing more and more and more.
He switched to hold'em and has been playing "for 14 or 15 years now, once I started, I couldn't stop." But there was the matter of the accident.
William says he doesn't mind talking about it: "I was driving a 1990 FZR 600 Yamaha race rocket motorcycle, it's a speed bike, a sports bike. It belonged to a friend who had just finished paying for it three days before. The friend offered to let me take it for a drive, and I got crazy: I was doing 90 to 120. I had forgotten about an approaching four way stop, and I smashed into the side of a '79 Cadi. My body went into the card. When the paramedics got there, actually, I was dead. They revived me, but I died again in the helicopter as they were airlifting me to the hospital. They revived me again, got me to the hospital, and began operating on me. I died for a third time during surgery, which lasted 12 hours, and when it was over, I was in a coma, but I came out of it pretty quickly.
"When I came out of the coma, a nurse was in the room, eating a sandwich, and all I could think about was how hungry I was. The nurse was amazed I had regained consciousness that quickly. She told me what had happened to me.
"I was in the intensive care unit for two weeks, with another week in the hospital after that, and then I went into rehab. That's where they gave me the idea of using my feet for everything. Using a mouth stick to type was too hard, using my feet were easier. I've had 16 years of practice now, so I'm limber." He uses his feet for a myriad of things now, and can even eat with them.
If poker is his life, golf is his hobby, or one of them, and he hasn't let the loss of the use of his arms be an impediment there, either. Just as he has adapted in poker, sliding the cards up a wooden ramp, displaying them between his toes, and stacking small stacks of chips with his feet, he's adapted similarly to golf. He putts with his teeth and swings the putter with his right leg, a method that works so well for him that William ranks 158th out of the top 300 putters in the world. He is both fiercely athletic and highly competitive, two traits that have served him well after the accident as he seeks to play serious poker and live as normal a life as possible.
When asked how he overcame the hand he was dealt, William answers, "I just took it as the biggest challenge of my life. Perseverance was part of it. I wasn't ready to quit yet. I was young and wanted to continue my life. Stubbornness might have something to do with it. I never give up. I feel like if I want something enough, if I work at it, I can do it."
Poker, like life, is a complex game. There is a luck factor, good and bad. But if determination and perseverance count for anything, William Rockwell seems headed for poker greatness. In life, he's already won.