There was no need to defend Sarah Adam on the court, at least not in the eyes of her opponents.
Competing in her first wheelchair rugby competition, she was an unknown, she was inexperienced, and she was a woman playing a male-dominated sport.
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"No one knew that I maybe know a little bit about rugby," said Adam, a 32-year-old from Naperville, Illinois. "Until about three plays in."
Adam quickly showed her opponents why, years later in 2024, she would go on to become the first woman to represent Team USA at the Paralympics in wheelchair rugby, a sport so physical it is nicknamed “murderball.”
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"It didn't take very long for them to realize, 'Oh, this is someone we have to take seriously on the court,'” she said on NBC’s "My New Favorite Paralympian." "And then suddenly it was, 'Where's the girl? We gotta find the girl!'"
The girl had been competing in wheelchair rugby long before that day, long before she was even using a wheelchair.
When Adam was first introduced to the sport, she was an occupational therapist assisting children with disabilities. Her mentor Dr. Kerri Morgan, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis for occupational therapy as well as a competitive wheelchair rugby player and a four-time Paralympic track medalist, needed volunteers to fill in during her team’s practice sessions.
Adam began using a wheelchair to compete in scrimmages with the team.
“I think Sarah has been fortunate to be around that environment and she has taken full advantage of it and is benefiting from it,” Morgan said. “I think it has really helped her get into the sport faster.”
She soon got into the sport on a competitive basis.
Then Adam began experiencing issues with her hand that she assumed was due to a nerve injury. Just days before she was set to complete her graduate school program, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
“My whole identity is being an athlete and active individual,” she said. “And the MS diagnosis… what am I supposed to do? Just sit and watch that all get stripped away slowly?”
She began experiencing weakness on the right side of her body, making it difficult for her to pick up her leg.
“So, anytime I was walking, it was really slow,” she said. “I was getting really fatigued and tripping and falling a lot and hurting myself.”
She began using a leg brace in 2018, initially resisting the use of a wheelchair.
“It's kind of an ableist attitude of society of that, if you can walk, you should walk,” she said. “And a little bit uncomfortable around my teammates who couldn't walk at the time, they had to use their wheelchairs.”
Adam began playing wheelchair rugby competitively in 2019. During a tournament in St. Louis, she went out to dinner with her team. Adam, while walking to the restaurant, was unable to keep pace with her teammates who were in their chairs.
“And I think that was the moment when I realized like, why am I struggling and pushing myself to walk when it's just a little bit easier to just get in a chair, be able to keep up with my teammates, not be exhausted, be able to compete the next day,” she said. “And I remember…I'm so scared to start using a wheelchair around my teammates. What are they going to think? How is society going to view me using a chair when I can still walk? Even what is my family going to think when I'm using a chair?”
Her teammates were instantly accepting of her decision to start using a wheelchair. Her family ultimately came to understand after seeing how much the wheelchair improved her life.
“My wheelchair is my freedom to do the things I want and need to do throughout my day in an easier and a safer way to conserve my energy,” she said. “It's not a barrier. If anything, it just makes my life so much better.”
After five years of practicing occupational therapy, Adams began a new career path once the physical and active nature of the job became too demanding. She switched from pursuing a master’s degree to pursuing a clinical doctorate so she could eventually teach.
"I'm so grateful that I still get to stay connected to the occupational therapy community just in a different way as a professor, teaching students how to be future OTs," she said.
Adam was invited to try out for the wheelchair rugby U.S. national team in 2021 and earned a spot on the roster. She made her international debut at the Americas Championship in 2022, winning gold, and later that year won silver at the World Championships in Denmark.
In April, she became the first woman named to the U.S. Paralympic wheelchair rugby team -- a co-ed team that hadn’t had a woman on the roster since becoming an official Paralympic sport at the 2006 Sydney Games.
“Even my physician sometimes thinks it’s a little crazy to be training at the elite level for wheelchair rugby, a full contact sport with guys, as a person with MS, as a female in general,” Adam said. “And I’m like, ‘Let’s go into the storm. Let’s do it.’”
She quickly showed her opponents why, regardless of gender or disability, she must be defended on the court.
“We're breaking down the stereotype, not only that people with disabilities are fragile or can't be competitive or can't do things that we enjoyed before, but it also levels that playing field,” Adam said. “We all have something that we're working through. We all have some adversity in our life. We all have a disability of some sort. And so then it almost makes it easier to see us as a person first or as an athlete first because the disability isn't highlighted as much.”
Adam was interviewed for My New Favorite Paralympian, a series that tells the stories of Team USA’s most inspiring athletes and the causes they champion. Subscribe to My New Favorite Paralympian wherever you get your podcasts.
