| A Sports Vision
Success Story: Greg Vaughn's Turnaround
| Veteran San Diego Union columnist
Tom Cushman called San Diego Padres' left fielder Greg Vaughn's
improvement in 1998 "the most astonishing turnaround
I've witnessed in 30-plus years of covering major league
baseball."
During and after Vaughn's dismal 1997 season, the Padres
attempted to trade Vaughn, first ot the Toronto Blue Jays
for Joe Carter, than to the Boston Red Sox for Steve Avrey.
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Greg Vaughn
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Finally, in July 1997 the Padres traded Vaughn
to the New York Yankees. Two days later the Yankees voided the
deal, claiming Vaughn had a bad shoulder. He finished the season
with the Padres, batting a career-worst .216 with 18 home runs
and 57 runs batted in. As a sign of how bad things were, the Padres
then left Vaughn exposed during all three rounds of the expansion
draft. No team was willing to take a chance on Greg.
During spring training 1998, Vaughn continued where he left off
in '97-dismally. Then, early in the 1998 season Greg was referred
by David Kaglyama, O.D., to Lemon Grove optometrist Carl Hillier,
O.D. Dr. Hillier, a behavioral optometrist who specializes in
vision therapy and sports vision enhancement training, evaluated
Vaughn and found visual inefficiencies he felt were limiting Greg's
ability to perform to his full potential. Vaughn began a program
of in-office optometric vision therapy designed to enhance the
speed and accuracy of his visual motor response to visual stimuli.
Vaughn saw immediate improvement in performance and has become
an advocate for optometric vision therapy. Greg has discussed
the benefit he derived, which resulted in the referral of several
other Padre players, as well as those from other teams, to Dr.
Hillier to begin vision therapy programs. He was also the catalyst
for several national media articles, as well as an outstanding
ESPN interview which highlighted the important relationship between
vision and hitting.
Vaughn has stated, "The whole concept for going to vision
therapy is to be able to pick up and recognize objects and get
the information from my eyes to my brain; taking advantage of
opportunities you have to make yourself better."
Says Hillier, "Greg is a professional and will do whatever
he knows will help him improve. In the case of Greg's vision therapy
program it worked for him. He was consistent in coming in for
treatment whenever the team was in San Diego and diligently performed
his home VT on a daily basis throughout the '98 season."
The results were dramatic. Vaughn finished the season with a .282
batting average, 50 home runs, and 119 runs batted in. To quote
eight-time batting champion Tony Gwynn, " I shudder to think
where we would have been without him. I know that we would have
never been close to finishing in first place. Greg saved us."
In the '98 playoffs the Padres beat both Houston and Atlanta and
made it to the World Series for the first time in 14 years. They
ended up being swept by the Yankees, the winningest team in baseball
history. Just imagine how many games the Yankees could have won
if Vaughn had played for them. Hillier says Vaughn expects to
continue his VT program in the off-season and has his sights set
on a fast start in 1999.
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