OT seeks Olympic level wheelchair
tennis
by Mary
Helen YarboroughPublic Relations
With a mean backhand topspin, Sarah Casteel maneuvers the tennis court with aggressive precision. And though she uses a wheelchair to chase down points, she does it better than most, which she hopes will help her achieve Olympian status.
Sarah Casteel
practices her serve with the help of coach Crafton Dicus as she pursues
her Olympic dream. The Greenville native is pursuing her degree in occupational therapy in the College of Health Professions. Casteel also is competing in national wheelchair tennis events, having served as a World Cup team member.
The former national wheelchair tennis champion suffered a paralyzing spinal cord injury five years ago during the Independence Day holiday when a drunk driver slammed into the car she was driving. Her 15-year-old brother, who was her passenger, died at the scene.
Casteel, who was 18 at the time, had to make some heavy adjustments. She had to deal with the loss of her younger brother, and she had to deal with the loss of mobility that she previously had taken for granted.
Prior to her accident she excelled in tennis, having competed on the boys' tennis team in high school because the school did not have a girls' team. She beat the boys, too, and she later played on her college tennis team at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo. In her freshman year of college she wanted to study fashion design and art, but that all changed.
After her accident, Casteel was taken to the University of Missouri Hospital where she learned of her fractured vertebrae and the realization that she would not walk again. She remained in the hospital for three months and then returned to her home in Greenville where she continued with physical therapy.
When she returned to college, her new limited condition was met with a vast change in how she was treated by her classmates and friends. It was not good.
An all-girls’ school, Stephens College, she discovered, was not wheelchair accessible nor especially compassionate. “It was weird,” she said. “My life had changed so much. I found out I didn’t have friends anymore. A lot of people I thought were my friends disappeared. I guess they couldn’t deal with it. It was very hard. …I decided this was not the place for me anymore.”
So, Casteel looked for another school, one that not only could accommodate her in a wheelchair, but one that would improve her quality of life. She found such a place at the University of Texas at Arlington.
“The occupational therapist I worked with in Missouri actually introduced me to wheelchair tennis, so I started looking for a school with a wheelchair tennis program, and the University of Texas actually was offering a scholarship for wheelchair tennis,” Casteel said. Casteel applied and received a wheelchair tennis scholarship to attend UTA. “I made friends there and I was No. 1 on a team of four,” Casteel said. “I competed against other colleges and I competed in national tournaments.”
She won the national championship two years in a row, in 2004 and 2005. In 2005, she also was a member of the 2005 World Cup team competition held in the Netherlands.
When she graduated in 2005 with an Inter-disciplinary Studies degree with a focus on biology, she decided to pursue a career helping others. A connection she made with an occupational therapist in Missouri also helped inspire her to become an occupational therapist, which led her to MUSC.
Now in her first year at MUSC, Casteel continues to train for a spot on the USA Olympic wheelchair tennis team. A setback occurred in February when doctors removed the screws and plates from her spine that were placed there after her car wreck. The plates and screws began to irritate her, which interrupted her tennis training. After a few week's recovery, Casteel is back in training with her coach, Crafton Dicus, and back in competition around the country.
Even as a member of the U.S. Tennis Association High Performance Wheelchair Tennis Team, Casteel has a little catching up to do. Still, she feels she has a shot of representing her country in the 2008 Games in Beijing. By then, she also will have graduated from MUSC. Meanwhile, she is hopeful that people will help her get there—through moral support, as well as financial support as she seeks sponsors.
For more information about how to help Casteel reach the Olympics, contact her at casteel@musc.edu.
Friday, May 11, 2007
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