Nancy Lopez's hand-on involvement with Adventures In Movement for the Handicapped has become the lifeblood of the charitable organization, which teaches disabled children how to cope with their handicaps through movement education.

Playing with priorities

One of the first people -- outside family and the golf community -- whom Nancy Lopez told about her winning the Old Tom Morris Award was Dr. Jo Geiger of Dayton, Ohio.

It was fitting, because few people know Lopez better than Geiger, the executive director of Adventures In Movement for the Handicapped (AIM).

"I can tell you Nancy is really appreciative of this award," Geiger says. "She told me this one (the OTM award) is different. She's really excited about it. She feels it's really a compliment."

For nearly 20 years Lopez has been involved with Geiger's nonprofit organization, which specializes in helping disabled children function with their handicaps through a unique method of movement education.

As a national ambassador for AIM, Lopez has made it one of her life's missions to help these children by selling the organization to the public through personal contacts, fund-raising and hosting a pro-am charity golf tournament each spring at Dayton's Sycamore Creek Country Club.

"I know the real Nancy Lopez," says Geiger, who has been running AIM for more than 30 years. "It's amazing how people who know nothing about golf relate to her. She's opened doors we never could have otherwise. She's made such a wonderful difference. We wouldn't be here today without her."

Geiger says she began recruiting Lopez to help with the charity soon after she exploded upon the American sports scene in the late 1970s as a young, charismatic golfer who won 17 tournaments in her first two years on the LPGA Tour.

"I wanted to know if this person was who I heard she was; I wanted to know if she was for real," Geiger says. "I told her I wanted her heart . . . that I needed someone who believes with their whole heart and soul. Finally, she got back to me and said, 'OK, you've got everything I have.' "

Lopez may have been an easy mark when the very persuasive Geiger won her over in 1980, but at that early point in her career a strong commitment to a charitable cause had to be the right fit.

"There was something else I needed in my life then, and it was to feel good about helping other people," Lopez recalled several years ago during an AIM function.

Lopez's involvement has been far beyond what's expected of most athletes in their charitable causes. For the better part of two decades, she's been in constant contact with Geiger about fund-raising, and often she shows up in Dayton at the AIM training center and works with the disabled children and their parents.

But Lopez's biggest role for the organization is hosting the annual tournament, a major fund-raiser for AIM and, over the years, probably its most significant interplay with the public. Lopez virtually runs the event herself and is joined in that endeavor by other LPGA stars each year, greeting participants at each par-3 and occasionally offering impromptu advice or "lessons."

"People come from all over the country to play in the tournament," Geiger says. "They came for Nancy at first, but now they come for the kids."

This coming May will be the 20th pro-am, and the event will be newly embellished by the sponsorship of Chick-fil-A, one of AIM's key corporate boosters. As added irony, Lopez's most recent LPGA victory was the Chick-fil-A Championship in 1997.

Geiger notes that AIM also has become a cause for the whole Lopez family. Nancy's husband, Ray Knight, donated to the organization the vehicle he won as World Series MVP for the New York Mets in 1986 and has been a regular celebrity participant in the pro-am since his retirement from baseball. And, a few years ago, Nancy brought her three daughters, Ashley, Erinn and Torri, to Dayton to see AIM in action.

"I wanted them to see that AIM was more than Jo, more than my golf tournament," Lopez said following that visit. "I wanted them to meet some of the children and see how AIM touches their lives. We had a great day. We all left smiling with a deep warmth that only love can bring."

Geiger says Lopez told her not too long ago, following a session with the AIM kids: "I could stop playing golf tomorrow and just do this. I love it."

To be sure, the presence of Lopez has become quite literally the lifeblood of the organization, which doesn't charge for its services and, like most nonprofit charitable entities, is constantly struggling for the ever-elusive donation dollar that is stretched mighty thin these days.

"A little over a year ago we faced the prospect of having to close down after all those years," Geiger recalls. "When Nancy found out, she became very upset and then personally began a campaign to raise money. She wrote to close friends, including some pretty important people in golf. She had never done that before, but she did it. Those people know she's real -- and the money rolled in."

Lopez also recalled that effort during post-tournament activities at the 1999 pro-am: "I was so grateful for the friendship of these people. Most of them didn't know anything about AIM, but I told them it was something that meant so much in my heart. With people like that, we can go a long way."

Geiger says her favorite Lopez/AIM story, however, happened back in 1998 when Lopez's induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame conflicted with the date of the AIM golf tournament. Lopez was on the verge of skipping the induction ceremony in favor of her pro-am when other tournament officials and Sycamore Creek CC came to the rescue and found another acceptable playing date.

"She told me, 'AIM means more to me than that,' " Geiger says. "That's the Nancy Lopez very few people know."

-- T.O.