Hydred Goldberg - Part 1 (The Accident That Changed Everything)

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Welcome to another edition of Legends of the Cue and Mark Wilson. On a day when we've released the life story of Henrik Larsson, Alli thought it very, very important that we have this lady on as well.

Mark Wilson 0:30

Every week we get someone with an interesting and inspiring story. These are all so different in terms of the backgrounds and genuinely make for a fascinating look at how each player arrived at becoming a Legend of the Cue.

Allison Fisher 0:44

Our guest today is Hydred Goldberg of the United States, one of the most fascinating new champions on the international pool team and a pioneer in world chair billiards. Hydred is a two-time WPA Heyball Parassport World Champion, having won the inaugural women's title in Los Angeles in 2024, and successfully defended it in Brisbane in 2025. But there is much more to her story than those two gold medals. A life-changing automobile accident forced Hydred to learn a new way of moving through the world. Along the way, she discovered competitive pull, developed a game from the wheelchair that would eventually take her into semi-professional competition, pursued another creative passion in special effects makeup, and then returned to the table to become a world champion. And although the world may know her best for Heyball, Hydred would tell you that Nineball is really her game. Today she competes internationally and has become an increasingly visible ambassador for the growth of para sport billiards around the world. Hydred Goldberg, welcome to Legends of the Cue.

Hydred Goldberg 1:53

Hello, glad to be here.

Allison Fisher 1:56

It's wonderful to have you. So Hydrid, for two years you were the only woman Parasport Hable world champion the sport had ever known. What was it like arriving in Oslo this year with everyone trying to take something you had never surrendered?

Hydred Goldberg 2:12

Yeah, I think uh coming to the the Oslo competition that there is that feeling, you know, it's a lot more intense, there's more pressure. People are gunning for you. They want to take the spark.

Allison Fisher 2:28

Sparrow in the back.

Hydred Goldberg 2:30

Yeah. Yeah. Um and and I did find myself uh feeling a little bit more guarded, to be honest, um and trying to keep my peace as much as possible. Like trying to stay meditative and in my little bubble. Um since the 2024 Haybor competition uh started and ended, I have kept in touch with many of the people um from that competition. And so we've become quite friendly. Um for me it's it's it's uh an interesting balance because I was I couldn't quite regulate uh and find the stay with the competitive spirit and then keep keep it you know, friendly talks outside. So I did deal with that quite a bit. Uh and especially for that Oslo competition.

Allison Fisher 3:34

Right.

Hydred Goldberg 3:35

Yeah.

Allison Fisher 3:36

If you want to win, you can't have friends. That's the bottom line. Is that it? No, I'm I'm not joking. Is is that a thing? Is it no, you have to be able to compartmentalize to put it aside, but I do absolutely agree with you. Sometimes it's hard to put that aside and just get to the table and be in the office and do your job.

Hydred Goldberg 3:56

Right.

Allison Fisher 3:57

Definitely.

Hydred Goldberg 3:57

I think also the timing in between, you know, the the the first tournament was December 2024, the second one was six months later. Oh um and then the Oslo the third one came one year after uh Australia. So um it it felt for me like very compacted and very fast, and my five minutes of fame, I mean it it really uh it blew up. You understand how it was quite impactful to win that first uh competition. I I didn't I honestly didn't expect the kind of attention I get from it. Which is something I still struggle with a little bit, you know. Yeah.

Allison Fisher 4:55

You're not a center of the room person naturally then.

Hydred Goldberg 4:59

No, I prefer to behind be behind the camera. Uh doing making it.

Allison Fisher 5:04

Yeah. I'm the you're either on the wall, in the centre, or in the middle. I'm kind of in between the two. I'd like to know what's going on in the centre, but I don't want to be on the wall either. Right. That's how it described Kelly and me. Kelly's in the centre. I'm right behind her, but not quite against the wall.

Mike Gonzalez 5:22

And it's her birthday today. And it's Kelly Fisher's birthday today.

Hydred Goldberg 5:27

It's her birthday. Yeah, that's lovely. Yeah. That's great.

Mark Wilson 5:33

Catherine Sneeberger finally got you in the semifinal after finishing second to you twice. How long did it take before you could appreciate what she had accomplished?

Hydred Goldberg 5:45

Ah, you know, we played uh in Oslo, of course. Uh the first match that we played um was the first time uh she had vested in me. And I could tell, just uh I could just tell how um more focused she was. Um and uh shortly after that we we we played uh again and uh she took me out. Um and she was heading just solid. Really concentrated and I could see, I could, you know, she'd been she'd been really working it. I I do think that the first two tournaments were just too close together. Uh quite a few people um were first time participants in this Hayball game. So it was just uh an equal field for all until, you know, it was no longer just sort of like a feeling of a charity event. It was more, okay, this this is an actual competition, um, and we're making history here.

Mike Gonzalez 7:07

Yeah, yeah. Well, we're gonna come back to the details of all that. Uh we thought we'd just open up and ask you a little bit about your most recent experience there. But uh, you know, we'll come back to Catherine, we'll come back to Hayball, we'll come back to world championships. But before we do, we've got a lot to talk about. Uh we always start with uh our guests going back to their childhood. You know, you're you're a little kid now growing up in London and the and the London area of England. Uh, what are your first memories of uh growing up as a child there?

Hydred Goldberg 7:38

Um God. The thing that came to mind was painting the garage walls with mud. That was that should be it. But that's one thing that sticks out. Is that a thing or is that just what kids do there? It was no, we just had um we lived in a house called the Orchard Bungalow. You could write the Orchard Bungalow and uh uh on the address Bedfont Middlesex TW148LG, and I just remembered that because it's just it's it's just etched in the memory there. But it was 148 bedfold close, and um probably one of the first homes there, and yeah, we had apple trees and pear trees and um blackberry bushes and strawberries, and our father he would grow a lot of vegetables too, and he was quite handy, so he would also build things like swing set in a tree house and definitely. Yeah, it very much so, you know, because I've got a big family too, so it's definitely uh a playground.

Mike Gonzalez 8:49

So define big.

Hydred Goldberg 8:51

Big. You know, we turned it. It wasn't it it was big, you know, when you were little. It's ginormous. But I remembered going back to visit maybe uh I don't know, like a decade, decade ago. And um yeah, it's uh it's uh it's a two-story home, and remembered being on the the there's you know two floors, there's the blue room and a pink room next to it. Blue room would look over the garden. Uh and we were above the office, um, my parents' bedroom, um, and it always looks so tall and scary, you know. But I remembered heading back. Um I did knock uh on the new owner's home, and that they were you know very gracious enough for us to kind of peek around the corners, see what changes they did.

Allison Fisher 9:49

Uh it's kind of concreted out, but um yeah, of course, it was a lot a lot smaller than how we thought it was I've done the same thing going back in time to the house that I was born in or raised in, and I'm like, oh, it's not as big as I thought. So I got I've got all grown up now. Um I got more than myself. So we've seen you described as American via the Philippines. What's the real story behind that? Can you tell us a little bit about parents, grandparents, siblings? Yes, yes.

Hydred Goldberg 10:21

I'm for Filipino, um, born and raised in London, England, um, Elephant Castle.

Allison Fisher 10:29

Oh right.

Hydred Goldberg 10:30

Um, my parents, um my father was from uh Pampanga, um very metropolitan kind of uh city by Manila, and my mum is Ilcano. So the way that the cities were that they're sort of uh provinces um with about 50 miles between them, but they have completely different uh languages, uh food, um you know different types of uh culinary tastes in each place, and there's definitely almost like a class difference between them too. Uh most times you'd see like my father's side for Manila or um Pampunga as being more like the actors, uh politicians, people who are more publicly facing, you know. Um my mum's side was um you know, like uh working class people, but strangely it would seem if you were to look at my parents as a couple who'd think that they were from the other side of each other, or uh swapped places. So uh in the home they would either speak English or Tagalog. They do have their own language too, but my sisters and I, we understood Tagalog, uh, but we never spoke it. And when we tried, we would be made fun of by each other because it sounds so stupid. So we it's horrible because you know, kind of uh became an obstacle between us and talking to our grandparents, you know.

Allison Fisher 12:26

Did you do you still have or did you have back then Filipino family traditions?

Hydred Goldberg 12:32

Yeah, you know, they had uh a lot of Filipino festivals. Um and I remembered we would we as you know the whole family, we'd be part of them with uh costumes and um the the way that to use the instruments. There's I can't, I don't know the name of the instrument, I won't even try, but it's like a wooden bamboo thing that you shake. Um and they all have different notes and tones, uh, and also with a dancing style with two bamboos. So, you know, we learned a lot about the culture in that way through the dance, through mostly the food, um, and you know, uh some of the instruments there, costumes. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 13:26

You you mentioned to me um you were the oldest, right?

Hydred Goldberg 13:30

Yes.

Mike Gonzalez 13:31

Uh with that comes some privileges, but with that comes some real responsibility too, especially with as many siblings as you had.

Hydred Goldberg 13:40

That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, uh, you know, in many ways, I'm I'm like a second mum. Uh I know how to do everything that my mum does. You know, how to prepare the meal, change nappies, do everything. Um it's I don't know, you just kind of have to grow up real quickly. There there wasn't that much uh uh I'd say affection in our family. It really wasn't. We didn't really get hugs and stuff. It was more of okay, just delegating of work, okay, go do this, take care of that, you know. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 14:24

Um Well, I kind of lost count when you you named them all for me. I kind of lost count. How many siblings do you have?

Hydred Goldberg 14:31

Well, there's there's 11 of us all together.

Mike Gonzalez 14:34

Okay. So I I might have been one off, but I that's a family. Good Lord. And the age spread between you and the youngest is what?

Hydred Goldberg 14:44

So uh between 51 and 26 now, I believe.

Mike Gonzalez 14:52

Okay, so 25 years old.

Hydred Goldberg 14:53

Oh no, actually, sorry, younger, younger. Maybe it's no, no, that that sounds about right. Maybe 20 or something.

Allison Fisher 15:01

Okay.

Hydred Goldberg 15:01

It was a busy time. Oh yeah, yeah.

Allison Fisher 15:05

But there's you had a very busy childhood, didn't you?

Hydred Goldberg 15:08

Raising kids. Yeah, yeah. Although um to to correct a part there, uh, my father did have another family of five children. So the first media is six of us.

Mike Gonzalez 15:25

So there's all right.

Hydred Goldberg 15:26

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 15:27

All right. I don't feel so bad for your mother now.

Hydred Goldberg 15:31

Yeah, sometimes I wonder how she did it.

Mike Gonzalez 15:34

Yeah, otherwise I'd kind of put her up here in Saint category, you know.

Hydred Goldberg 15:37

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 15:38

Oh yeah.

Hydred Goldberg 15:38

Although I do understand why she's so stoic like today. Um just doesn't seem like anything phases her.

Mike Gonzalez 15:47

Mm-hmm.

Hydred Goldberg 15:48

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 15:49

Yeah, probably doesn't. Now, were were you ever co-located all you kids together or kind of two separate homes?

Hydred Goldberg 15:56

Uh well, uh it's a little bit complex, but um uh yeah, we we grew up, me and my immediate siblings and I um grew up around Greater London um and that you know, stayed there. Uh I think or what happened was my sister's nanny, because I had moved back to the to America for a little bit, um were taken care of by Nanny and uh the nanny's kids are our our fathers as well. So that's how that came about. Yeah. Okay.

Mike Gonzalez 16:46

Oh now I got you.

Hydred Goldberg 16:49

And applied seconds. Oh yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 16:52

Yeah. Yeah. Mark Mark, you've got a question, I think.

Hydred Goldberg 16:55

Sure.

Mark Wilson 16:56

Uh before Pool entered your life, what were you passionate about?

Hydred Goldberg 17:02

Oh goodness. Art. Definitely art. Um and I've always been good uh pencil drawing, watercolouring for a very long time. Um love reading, was never really into sports, although badminton was probably the closest because it's slow moving, you know, when you think about the bird. Don't have to run too much. I can actually, yeah, I can I can time that better. But other than that, it was mostly art. Uh and loved listening to music. Um so before Paul, uh, that was it. I'd I'd say socializing in school. Had no real interest in education at that time, just making friends in another country. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 18:00

I I will say about badminton, and and our daughter, our oldest daughter, played that a lot in high school as well. But yeah, uh, because she did, we went to the uh Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. Rolled into town with no tickets, and the first thing we found tickets to was mixed doubles, gold medal match, badminton, South Korea against South Korea. And if you'd watched that, you wouldn't think it's slow moving.

Hydred Goldberg 18:33

Oh, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 18:34

I imagine amazing.

Allison Fisher 18:36

Wow. The way we played it was slow.

Mike Gonzalez 18:39

Yeah, yeah.

Allison Fisher 18:41

That's what she said.

Mike Gonzalez 18:42

That'd be me too, probably. So what kind of what kind of student were you?

Hydred Goldberg 18:49

Um I'd say because my interests were mostly with making friends and being accepted. Um say more mediocre than anything. You know, I excelled in the arts, uh, drama, that class, um, you know, stuff like that, but nothing really Yeah, wasn't yeah, I wasn't really into the education um as as much and you weren't around pool at all uh in your early days that you can remember, right? No.

Mike Gonzalez 19:25

Yeah. So when did you come to the States?

Hydred Goldberg 19:28

So we'd been coming back and forth because my mum's side has uh our aunties are out in Northern California. So we would come and visit them in San Leandro, California every so often. Um the actual move was probably around the nineties. And I remember going to school in San Leandro and then Yeah, yeah. And I know with like with immigration and petitioning for our green cars to get out here, I'm not sure when everything really settled in or our parents never really told us about how that worked.

Allison Fisher 20:28

So It's just like we're going, get you on a plane and we're going. Yeah, we're going. So your parents landed in London and your aunt and other parts of the family landed in America.

Hydred Goldberg 20:38

Yeah.

Allison Fisher 20:38

So different, isn't it? And uh how were you feeling like leaving London? Like how old were you when you left London? Fourteen. Right. Well that's a tricky time in life too, isn't it? It is, it is.

Hydred Goldberg 20:53

You know that I think you're establishing more close bonds.

Allison Fisher 20:58

Yeah.

Hydred Goldberg 20:59

Um yeah. Uh and it's uh but then also with the the traveling back and forth, you know, like on vacation out here. Um I didn't yeah, I really didn't have many lifelong friends. I can say though, today I do have like my girlfriend Eileen, I've known her since we were 11. We went to St. Mark's Catholic School in Houndslow, and she's definitely someone I still keep in touch with. Uh and uh girlfriend named Bowner, she was my next door neighbour. She now lives in in Australia. I actually got the chance to see her out there last year, which was fantastic. Ah, it was it was amazing. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 21:47

So your periodic visits to the States to visit your auntie, uh, did that prepare you better for the eventual move over here in terms of how easy it was to transition as a as a younger kid?

Hydred Goldberg 21:59

Absolutely. Cause you know I I think we because we were used to just coming out and easily making friends, you know. Um and I think that's what accounts for the whole social aspect for me was trying to find some grounding, you know, trying to find some real friendships that weren't just kind of choppy and cut up kind of thing. Uh so yeah, yeah, I'd say kind of made the transition easier.

Mike Gonzalez 22:34

Yeah. So you went through your high school years then in in Northern California, is that right?

Hydred Goldberg 22:40

In Northern California, I ended up finishing, yeah, my senior um uh yeah, senior class out in uh Vallejo High School.

Mike Gonzalez 22:53

Yeah. And so leading up to that 18th birthday, what what was going on in your life? Were you preparing for college at the time, thinking about where you might want to attend university? What was going on?

Hydred Goldberg 23:03

Yeah, yeah, I was uh now I don't remember or really recall. I mean, I think I did apply for some colleges, but I don't remember. So in my mind, I'm I'm pretty sure it wasn't really all that important to me at the time. Um uh at the end though, uh nothing came up nothing came about because I was in the hospital, but while um or just after the accident, I realized you know, people were moving fast. You know, they've got their families already, they've got they go into college, uh and so you know, this feeling of being left behind is definitely there.

Mike Gonzalez 23:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hydred Goldberg 23:54

Maybe accelerated because I was just lying there.

Mike Gonzalez 23:57

Um take take us back to that time then, uh, because you had mentioned you had the uh this uh this accident that occurred uh just five days after your 18th birthday back in 1993. Just take us take us through that.

Hydred Goldberg 24:11

Yeah, uh so I have uh three of my siblings. We have a birthday that lands on the 5th of a month. Um my sister Hilda Brown, she's the baby, her birthday was July 5th. But we, you know, I wanted to take her out shopping out up in Northern California, and so we're on uh freeway uh 80. Uh my boyfriend at the time had a VW bug. Um it was very well, uh he he had it painted. It was his I could tell it it was definitely his pride and joy, and I enjoy being in that car too, but it had issues, mechanical issues. Um Hilda Brown was in the back seat, I was in the passenger seat. It was a uh a beautiful day, it was August 10th, 1993, and we were gonna go out to the outlet mall um just take her out shopping. Um so on the way back the uh steering column uh started sort of shimmying, you know, just doing like sort of rattling. And the way that uh Steve and my boyfriend at the time would remedy that was just by slowing down, uh you know, it would stop. But this time the whole steering column locked. Um and you know, before we knew it, we slided into the centre divider, crossed over all lanes and fell into a ditch. We hit a telephone pole. Um basically that's what caused my paralysis. So it was it was a pretty severe crash. Everybody we all had some pretty bad injuries. Um Stephen got pulled out of the car first, you know, they quickly put the the neck brace on him. I was the last one to get out. My sister was found underneath a steering wheel. She had like uh broken collarbone, bruises, and you know. And then um uh I was the last one to get out and you know, they put the neck collar on me too. We were all airlifted uh to different hospitals. Um and then that was basically the beginning of of new recovery or living living a different life.

Mike Gonzalez 26:45

Was your experience like many, which this seemed like it just looking back happened in slow motion at the time?

Hydred Goldberg 26:51

Yeah, actually it did. Yeah. Yeah, that I I s I recall that um in other talks too. Uh I just I do remember Steven putting his hand out like this to to hold me back, you know, like like that was gonna help, but it's uh everything was so fast, but at the same time it was it was really I think your mind does that uh I don't know to help with the shock, you know?

Mike Gonzalez 27:24

Yeah. So how did the other two come out of that uh ordeal?

Hydred Goldberg 27:30

Uh so bruised and banged up. Um Steven was okay. He also came out with uh just some bruises and stuff. Uh my yeah, my sister had broken collarbone. Um and I stayed um at the Kaiser Permanente out in Vallejo, which had an adjacent like rehab facility there. So I ended up staying at that basic facility for like five five months or so. From ICU to the surgery to bed rest to um physical therapy and stuff.

Mike Gonzalez 28:13

Yeah. How how long was it before uh it dawned on you that you know what, uh whatever I'm feeling now, this isn't going away?

Hydred Goldberg 28:21

I'd say once I left uh the hospital, you know, to to kind of take on this new life, I think of maybe about four or five years after. Like accepting it at the hospital I understood, you know, what the doctors were saying what my neurosurgeon was saying, but I didn't um I guess I didn't want to accept it. I think I was still truly in denial. Um but the thing that broke that uh illusion, I suppose, was when I got my uh license, my driver's license to drive. That's when I sort of really truly accepted, okay, it's not the end, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 29:16

So it it took you a while to go through these various stages that everybody must go through to to one of acceptance, you're saying, huh?

Hydred Goldberg 29:25

Yeah. Yeah, I think I think for most for most people there's there's you know the same the uh stages of grief when you lose a person. You know, I'm losing the function and mobility of my legs, you know. Um, I forgot to add, I I danced. I did oh like k oh how did I forget this? But I was dancing, they called it disco dancing, it was like part of uh a group that I was in as an after school project. Um the thing that my mum put us all in. So it was tap dancing, disco dancing and stuff. But that's where kind of I remembered a lot of how I you know missed the idea that I won't be able to walk on um you know in on the beach. Well, that would I'd never been on a real beach before until later in my adult years, you know, like when you go we you go to a beach in in England, right, Allie?

Allison Fisher 30:36

It's like oh yeah, we don't it's not that comfortable, is it really? It's got like rounded Legos, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 30:47

It's not real beachy, is that what you're saying? Not really.

Allison Fisher 30:50

Yeah, right.

Hydred Goldberg 30:53

Right. So I would you know, those are the sort of things I would think about. It's just like I won't be able to walk on grass or you know, yeah dance again or do this or do that. That was or find a boyfriend or get some work or you know, subscribe, lots of kinds of things.

Allison Fisher 31:10

Yeah, yeah. So you went from hospitalization, rehabilitation, your first wheelchair, learning new daily routines, emotional adjustment must have been very tough. I mean, maybe when you're in hospital and you're going through rehab, your first wheelchair, I mean, that must have been tough.

Hydred Goldberg 31:26

Yeah, psychologically. It it is. That's you know, that's the first time that that's a question I've never been asked before. Um my fur you know, getting fitted for my first wheelchair. That I never thought about this, but it's true. I remembered it was this midnight purple Quickie wheelchair. And Quickie was a very well-known wheelchair company.

Allison Fisher 31:51

Okay.

Hydred Goldberg 31:52

Um and I thought it was quite sporty, but the way that it was built for me was slightly larger to accommodate growth and uh say weight gain and stuff like that. So it you know, it was a good first chair, and I had it for a really long time. And um but I just yeah, I remember just it needing to be a necessity because half the time I honestly felt like I was uh in a daze. Yeah. Like really just numbed out, just checked out, you know.

Allison Fisher 32:32

And I I can I can tell, yeah. Yeah. How is your family taking it? Your you know, parents you know, you'd only been there a few years, hadn't you? And then this complete change of life.

Hydred Goldberg 32:44

Right. So uh, you know, my family, they I mean they stepped up and uh and beyond, like my sisters were taken out of uh regular public school to go to a school that would help accommodate me being in this uh rehabilitating uh time in my life and so I was never alone which was a good thing and at the same time a bad thing because I felt like they were probably dealing with it worse than I was. And maybe because I was checked out I couldn't really feel, you know, anything. I just wasn't really uh not to say I was not allowed to feel badly, but you know, they they were always uh there to and I won't say mask because I think they probably did just want to be happy and move forward and um be positive about things, but I didn't really get to grieve so much or be sad around that time at all. Yeah, I I I honestly I don't think I knew what I was feeling um around that. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 34:05

I I'd mentioned uh earlier when we opened about uh releasing Henrik Larson's story today, and and you know, it was just recently that we visited with Henrik, and so we explored this with him as well. We were rather curious because his experience is different, right? His experience was he never experienced what you experienced, which was walking on your two feet and dancing and you know other things that able-bodied people were able to do. And so his experience then of dealing with um his condition and and and learning to live with it, uh certainly much different from yours. And and he didn't want to necessarily call one better than the other, you know, right, uh, or or more preferred, if you will, than the other. Like, you know, does he hearken back and say, Man, I wish I had that chance to walk for 17 years or 18 years and then, you know, and then and then start dealing with it, or whether he would have been better prepared as an 18, 19 year old to deal with it versus just starting off, that's all he's known, right? Um I don't know if you guys have ever talked about that.

Hydred Goldberg 35:10

Oh, yeah. We've had numerous conversations uh just around disability in general. Um you know, the funny stuff, the sick stuff, the scary stuff, you know. Um and and it can be an emotional subject, and it's true because you know who's to say what's better, you know, having lived life um on two feet uh as opposed to having been born with it and not uh knowing what it was like, is it you know? So it it's good that you know, because when we talk about it, it's it's mostly in the current moment of well, this is what we have.

Mike Gonzalez 35:59

Yeah, right.

Hydred Goldberg 36:00

Yeah, and perceptions, you know, that kind of thing.

Allison Fisher 36:06

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