Redefining Disability

Logan Aldridge is a leader with the Adaptive Training Academy. As the director of training for the ATA, Logan teaches adaptive CrossFit to both disabled and abled body athletes all over the world. In addition to coaching, he also competes in CrossFit competitions. Logan has wowed people all across the world with his incredible feats of strength with just one arm.

Erica Wheeler went to Stanford University, and not only set the school women’s javelin record but a Pacific-10 Conference mark as well. She left there as a four-time All-American. She would go on to compete for #TeamUSA at the 1996 Olympic teams and later would win the 2003 U.S. outdoor title. Erica would move into coaching and now is the throwing coach for the U.S. Para Track & Field Team. So we...

Jill Moore would describe herself as a bonafide play addict. Born with spina bifida, she tried a number of adaptive sports growing up from wheelchair rugby and basketball to track and field. She received a wheelchair racing scholarship to attend the University of Illinois, where she would study industrial design. She also competed for Team USA in 2015. She continues to advance the field of play by...

Ian Seidenfeld just followed in his father’s footsteps by winning a gold medal in para table tennis at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. His father Mitch, who is also Ian’s coach, did the same at the 1992 Games. We sit down with Ian to get the spin on the sport.

Tahl Leibovitz is competing in his sixth Paralympic games in Tokyo in the sport of para table tenns. To date, he has brought home three medals for Team USA, including 1 gold and 2 bronze. Tahl is an icon in the sport and has been inducted into the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame and has represented the United States internationally for more than 20 years. He wrote Ping Pong for Fighters, a best sell...

Lex Gillette is the current world record holder in the long jump, a four-time Paralympic medalist, a three-time long jump world champion, and an 18-time national champion. He is the only totally blind athlete to ever eclipse the 22-foot barrier in the long jump. Lex won his first Paralympic silver medal in the long jump at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. He was 19. Now, he is in Tokyo, planning to...

On May 25, 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. Seven years later, he would complete the Seven Summits, the highest point on every continent. In 2014, he kayaked the entire 277-miles of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Erik understands that barriers are real, not merely perceived, and that obstacles encountered can either stop us in o...

Never expected to sit, stand, walk, or even possibly live, McKenzie Coan, who was born with brittle bone disease, has spent her life defying the odds. At 8 years old, she would set out on a successful swimming career. Four years later, she would compete at the London Paralympic Games in 2012. She would stand atop the Paralympic podium 3 times in 2016 in Rio. Now, she is heading to Tokyo for her 3r...

Candice Caesar’s father and grandfather both served in our country’s military. She knew that she wanted to serve as well, enlisting in the U.S. Army. But a vehicle accident while on duty in Germany impacted her military career after suffering a spinal cord injury. She challenged her prognosis by setting out with a goal to complete a marathon or half marathon in every state. Now, she has set her si...

Michael Simon was impacted by the events that happened on 9/11 twenty years ago this September. It moved him to join the Minnesota Army National Guard and was called up to Iraq about two years later and was deployed there for nearly two years. After returning stateside, a tumor was discovered that essentially ended his military service and affected his physical and mental health. Since then though...

Terry Hayes served as a heavy equipment operator in the U.S. Army. In 2011 she was diagnosed with a rare degenerative brain disease with no cure and no treatment. As someone that was used to being active, she was looking for a wheelchair sport when she learned about parafencing. At 63, she will be heading to Tokyo to compete for the U.S. in the Paralympic Games and is the oldest female category “B...

Hailey Danz is a six-time Paratriathlon World Championships medalist and won a silver medal at the 2016 Games in Rio. She is a Team Hartford athlete and has had the opportunity to be a part of presenting adaptive sports equipment through The Hartford’s Ability Equipped program in partnership with Move United over the past couple of years. Hailey will also be a special guest at Move United Junior N...

You may be familiar with the game of badminton. Many schools teach the sport in physical education class. It is also often played at family reunions, on beaches, and in backyards across the country. So in 2015, as it began to look like badminton was going to become a Paralympic sport, Steve Kearney was asked to run the para badminton program for Team USA and USA Badminton. So we chat with him abou...

Grind leads to glory. And Jeremy Boyd keeps on grinding. Less than five years ago, he was shot in the side, impacting his spinal cord. Just months after that incident, Jeremy was introduced to the sport of wheelchair tennis. He is a member of the University of Alabama Wheelchair Tennis Team, winning some titles and finishing #1 in Men’s B singles. Entering his senior year in college, he is now pla...

The sport of parafencing has been equated to a game of physical chess. And Shelby Jensen would know. The Move United Elite Team member has been ranked #1 in saber and #2 in epee and foil in the United States. When not competing for Team USA at the international level, she practices and competes with her local program in Salt Lake City, the Utah Swords Academy Fencing Club. A sophomore in college,...

James Gumbert would describe wheelchair rugby as an incredible game, something he was missing since he’d been injured. He was first introduced to the sport in 1992 by Hall of Famer Steven Scott and helped start a club team in Austin, Texas. He played in Austin for four years and then played in Houston for four years. In 1997, he started another team back in Austin and was trying to manage, coach,...

Badminton is more than a backyard sport. In fact, it is considered the 2nd largest sport in the world, although there is definitely some room for growth in the U.S. This summer, para badminton will make its Paralympic debut in Tokyo. So this week, we are chatting with Amy Burnett, a member of the U.S. Para Badminton team to discuss the sport and how to grow it.. Amy is the first wheelchair athlete...

Ashley Eisenmenger is considered the first NCAA triathlete with a disability that required some sport specific adaptation. As a blind triathlete, Ashley raced varsity women’s triathlon her junior and senior year at North Central College. She continues to compete at the highest level at various triathlons, including the Chicago Tri which is in her back yard. Ashley was recently able to get certifie...

Dana Mathewson was 10 years old when she contracted a rare autoimmune disease which impacted her spinal cord. After being in the hospital for about a month, her mom wanted her to give adaptive sports a try. As an athletic child, she was extremely hesitant to see what adaptive sports would be like in comparison. Like some other athletes, she never thought they would be competitive enough. But as sh...

A new show premieres on National Geographic on May 31st called Breaking Bobby Bones. In each half-hour episode, Bobby pursues his own mantra—Fight. Grind. Repeat.—by traveling to far-flung destinations across the country to find people with unique jobs, skills, hobbies and abilities. He meets everyday heroes who challenge him while also exploring the triumphs and tragedies that made these folks wh...

Joe Delagrave was a three sport athlete throughout high school, which led him to play Division II football at Winona State University. But on July 10, 2004 a casual boating adventure with some friends on the Mississippi River turned into a life altering accident. In the matter of a split second, he went from a college football player to a paralyzed 19 year old kid. He would discover wheelchair rug...

Mickey Zeljkovic is a five-time Serbian National Champion as a fencer and a former Paralympic National Head Coach for Kuwait. Now, he runs his own fencing club in the Philadelphia area and has developed multiple club programs for Paralympic fencers on the East Coast. In 2018, Mickey was named head coach of Team USA’s parafencing squad and has managed the qualification efforts for the 2021 Paralymp...

In 2002, Chuck Melton acquired a C7 spinal cord injury from a diving accident. Five years after his accident, he began to play wheelchair rugby in at a local program in St. Louis. For the past 12 years, he has been a member of the national team, winning a silver medal at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio. He is hoping to better that finish at the upcoming games in Tokyo.

Mary Hodge has coached four Paralympic Games. When she first started, she was the only female para coach in the U.S. at the time. She first got involved in sports for people with disabilities in 1988 when she started a local team for athletes with Cerebral Palsy. As the High-Performance Manager at US Para Powerlifting, headquartered at Logan University, her main goal within the organization is to...

Desmond Jackson is considered the fastest above knee amputee in the United States, currently holding the national record in the 100m dash. Throughout his life, Dez has been blazing trails. In middle school, he became the first amputee to compete in track and field in the state of North Carolina. At the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio he turned 16 years old and was the youngest African American male t...