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The Renegades beep ball team in Boston likes to joke about the fact that they’re the team in the National Beep Baseball Association with the most advanced degrees: three PhDs on the coaching staff, a pile of MAs in the field, and an Ivy League convention on the bench. (File photo by Kris Snibbe, Harvard Staff Photographer.)
Joe McCormick, who graduates from Harvard with a degree in computer science on May 29, knows to the decimal place how much he weighs: 196.2 pounds. Four years ago, as a senior at Malden Catholic, he weighed 180.0. That’s back when he bought his tuxedo to go to the prom with his girlfriend, Ashley Borders. And that’s the night — at the prom — that Joe realized he was starting to lose vision in his left eye, having already lost it in his right.
Ashley wore wild-strawberry pink, Joe remembers. His pocket square matched her color, and they were the only two out on the floor for the last dance. Aerosmith: I could stay awake just to hear you . . .
“Joe wouldn’t let us leave,” Ashley says. And so they stayed. He looked even more like Tom Brady than usual that night in April 2010, at least to her. It was something in the jaw. He danced like crazy, too, even though he wasn’t supposed to exert himself. It had only been a few months since he’d found out about his Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a degenerative condition that affects only an estimated 35,000 people worldwide and usually comes on during early adulthood.
But prom night was a good night. Not like the night Ashley had broken down when Joe called to tell her about his diagnosis. This was better. They could do this. He could still see her.
Today, 21-year-old Joe figures he could still squeeze into that tux. Might just wear it under his graduation gown, he likes it so much. And Ashley, now as then, will be there to admire. After he’s heard his name called, Joe will take a little time off before starting his job at Leaf, a Cambridge-based software company where he’s interned for two years.
“I’d say in terms of the average person, I’m a computer whiz,” he says. “A geek if you will.” He uses a screen magnifier called MAGic that multiplies by 15 times the size of the code he’s studying. Another program, JAWS, reads out loud what’s on his screen.
Joe, whose condition has left him with 20/800 vision, follows the Red Sox with the same kind of precision and drive he brings to his work and studies....
Read the entire article in the May 22 issue of Boston Globe Magazine
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