How To Make Your DREAMS COME TRUE

Ebony, August, 2000 by Zondra Hughes

FIVE people--an ex-convict, two late bloomers, a former poverty-stricken divorcee, and a child given away at birth without even a name--have one thing in common: They all had big dreams and dared to act on them, and all say that what they did you can do, too, if you decide that nothing--neither poverty, nor hardship, nor Father Time--is going to keep you from flying.

TODD M. SCOTT

Exec who was given away at birth

TODD M. Scott is the vice president of sales for the multibillion-dollar Personal Systems Group at IBM. That's quite a title for a man who was given away at birth and who didn't have a name for the first nine months of his life.

"I'm really proud of myself," Scott says, "but I'm probably more proud and happy for the people who have helped me to get to this point. As a 35-year-old executive at IBM, I know I'm in rare air here, and I'm really excited about that."

Knowing that you were given away at birth--without so much as a name--would overwhelm many. But Scott, who began his IBM career in the maintenance room and today services such clients as Time Warner and Disney, gained strength and ambition from his tough roots.

"I think for anybody who's adopted," he says, "there's somewhere in your subconscious mind where you're always trying to achieve and prove your self-worth. And I don't look at it as a negative at all, because my [adoptive] parents provided me so much love and support growing up."

For the first nine months of his life, Scott was a ward of Westchester County, New York. Then one day, he was put into the room with a couple who came to the adoption agency seeking a daughter. Every time the couple came to visit the baby girl they had applied for, the social workers put Todd inside the room with them. When it was time for the couple to take the daughter home, the mother looked back and said, "I'm not leaving this room without taking that little brown-eyed boy with me," Scott recalls.

Supported by his parents, Heftor and Pauline Scott, Todd, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall, aimed first at an NBA career. After earning the basketball scoring record for the county of Westchester, Scott attended Davidson College on a full basketball scholarship and earned his bachelor's degree in political science.

"My parents were very supportive of me and my NBA dream, but they were really adamant about my getting straight A's," Scott says. "I always had a plan B, which was business, because I didn't want to be a former athlete who couldn't get into the business world after my career was over."

In 1988, Scott's hoop dreams lost out to his business goals, and he began his career at IBM in Greenville, S.C.

"I think I am now living one of multiple dreams," Scott says. "I've achieved all the goals I've set for myself, and my basketball record surpasses fellow alumnus Elton Brand, who was a Chicago Bulls first-round draft pick."

Scott and his wife Norma have four children, Angela, 13, Sydney, 9, Tressa, 4, and Tiger, 2. But like so many adoptees, he wanted to find the missing piece of the puzzle in his life--his birth family. Five years ago, Scott located and reunited with his blood siblings, who were glad to see how well he has done.

"They sat back in amazement, and said, `You're the one who was given away,'" Scott laughs. "[They said], `You've got a great wife and children, a wonderful job, and are happy and well-adjusted.'" And they joked about who got the better deal.

Scott says he has a fail-proof plan to defeat adversity--work steadily to achieve your goals and always have a back-up plan.

"Life's not a walk in a park," he says, "but if you can focus on the positives in your life, versus the negative, great things can happen."

OLA KIZER

A college graduate at 86

AT age 86, Ola Kizer received a bachelor's degree at the University of Tennessee-Martin and became the oldest undergraduate in the more than 200-year history of the University of Tennessee system. And she's still "hitting the books," now working on a degree in tailoring.

"Most people my age are bed-ridden or deceased, but I refuse to sit at home," she says. "If I learn only one thing each day, I've accomplished something."

Kizer learned the value of a good education from her father, William (Will) Alexander, a Kentucky sharecropper. During the winter months, Alexander walked seven miles a day to take his daughter to school. When classes let out, Kizer had to walk the journey home alone. Today, the tailoring student drives 120 miles a day to attend classes in Paducah, Ky.

Like so many successful Black women, Kizer's educational career has been littered by personal trials. Married at the age of 18, and divorced soon after, she married again and moved to California, where she lived until she retired at age 68. After the death of her second husband, she moved to Owensboro, Ky., and remarried her first husband, who has since died. Alone, Kizer moved to Carbondale, Ill., and enrolled in art classes at the local college. In 1994, Kizer enrolled at the University of Tennessee-Martin, becoming one of four full-time students aged 60 and over.