How I got involved in the Paralympics

Growing up I loved sports.  Track and field became one of my favorites because I didn't have to worry about my vision as much as I did with football, basketball, soccer, ect.  

I was competing at Idaho State University my junior year.  A coach from Utah Valley University approached me and asked about my vision.  I thought that was kind of a weird question.  I told him a little about it.  He told me that about the Paralympic program and that they had a division for blind and visually impaired athletes.  I didn't pursue the possibilities because of some things in my personal life that I was dealing with. 

A year after graduating from college, I decided to go and take and eye test to see if my eyes where bad enough compete in the paralympics.  I loved track and field and wanted to continue to compete at an elite level.  I traveled to Mesa, AZ and passed the eye test. I was pretty dang excited.  It s the only time in my life that I was happy that I had eyes as bad as I do.  

I still had to high jump well to make the USA Paralympic team.  I had been out of training and conditioning for almost a year.  While I was in college I was high jumping between 1.95m and 2.05m (6 ft 5 and 6 ft 9).  I needed to jump 1.85 to make the team,  I barely did it.   You don't realize how important training is until you haven't done it for a while.  

And that is how I got involved in the USA Paralympics.  If anyone reading this has low, or no vision, you should seriously consider training and trying out for the USA Paralympic team.  We need more US blind and visually impaired athletes.   

I owe a huge thank you to Cathy Sellers for sticking with me until I finally made the Paralympic Team, my track coach Dave Nielsen, and my wife Kenzie.

Feel free to ask questions or leave comments.