Advertise on podcast: Redefining Disability

Dr. Kiersten McCartney is an exercise physiologist, sports performance specialist, and a founder of the Arena Adaptive Football Club, Delaware's amputee soccer team. She serves as sports performance specialist for the American Amputee Soccer Association and has conducted research at international competitions.

Ryan Davis is a T54 wheelchair track and field athlete whose competitive drive was shaped early — after a spinal cord injury at age six led him to wheelchair basketball, and eventually to his true passion in racing. Now a nationally recognized Para High School All American, Ryan competes in the 400 meters and 1500, trains five to six days a week year-round, and has built a 2026 schedule that includes his first international competitions in Mexico and Switzerland on a path toward the LA 2028 Paralympics. His long-term goal is to compete collegiately at the University of Illinois, earn a kinesiology degree, and eventually coach para sports.

Jesi Stracham is a trailblazing entrepreneur, speaker, and fierce advocate dedicated to transforming lives through her innovative ventures. As the co-owner of Freedom Longevity and Wellness LKN, she pioneers cutting-edge therapies that redefine holistic health and recovery. Jesi also co-developed the Wheel With Me Adapt Fit app, empowering wheelchair users to reclaim their independence through fitness. Through her Wheel With Me Foundation, she drives life-changing empowerment programs and hosts an inspiring summer camp for adult wheelchair users. She is the author Power in the Roll: A Life at Full Throttle After Spinal Cord Injury.

Three months after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Joe Oppold had a cerebral aneurysm. Instead of reporting to OBC, or Officer Basic Course, he wound up in the ICU. Just a year later though, he was able to go skiing with some fellow disabled veterans, which he still enjoys doing today as well as other activities. The Move United Warfighters Ambassador wrote a book,” That’s a Great Haircut” about his experience.

Amanda Warren served with distinction for 26 years as a Major in the Army, specializing in Logistics Management. Transitioning from military to civilian life brought unique challenges, but Warren found the medical care needed for both physical and mental healing. She was introduced to adaptive sports through a networking event sponsored by Adaptive Adventures, a Move United member organization. Since that pivotal moment, Warren has actively participated in track and field, cycling, and pickleball. As a Move United Warfighters Ambassador, Warren has built strong relationships within the veteran and athlete community, creating lasting bonds of belonging and unity.

Gabriel Cardier is an adaptive athlete, entrepreneur, and amputee advocate who lost his left leg in a 2014 motorcycle accident in Los Angeles. His athletic achievements include completing the Las Vegas half marathon and summiting Ecuador's Cotopaxi volcano with Range of Motion Project (ROMP), where his team became the first all-amputee expedition to successfully reach the summit. Drawing from his MBA background and personal experience navigating the challenges of amputation recovery, Cardier is launching Aurushi, an adaptive apparel company to make functional, stylish apparel for people navigating recovery, prosthetics, or movement challenges.

Katherine Hayes Rodriguez has been a pioneering force in adaptive skiing for nearly five decades. Beginning in 1976 as a volunteer with a program for visually impaired skiers in the Tahoe Basin, she became instrumental in professionalizing adaptive ski instruction across the United States. Katherine was an early leader of an organization that is now known as Achieve Tahoe, Move United’s first chapter, and served as a lead author of the first adaptive technical manual. She led clinics across the country and her work was crucial to the Professional Ski Instructors Association's adoption of adaptive skiing as an official discipline in 1986.

Marine Corps Veteran Gabby Wake was injured when a vehicle hit her motorcycle at a red light, resulting in a traumatic brain injury and damage to her back. Through the Wounded Warrior Battalion, she tried numerous adaptive sports. Gabby would medal at the DOD Warrior Games and Invictus Games in track and field as well as cycling events. But it is the sport of sled hockey that has really clicked and she is the goalie for the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Kim Seevers has spent nearly three decades in winter adaptive sports, including serving as the sighted guide for an alpine ski racer who competed in the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi Russia. Later that year, she developed the first bobsled and skeleton development camp for athletes with disabilities in Lake Placid, NY and has created a premier grassroots program for developing elite para bobsled and skeleton athletes that is now a decade old. Kim holds an MS in Performance Assessment from Penn State and a BS in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation from Slippery Rock University.

Josh Pauls was born without a tibia in both legs and had them both amputated at 10 months old. At age eight, he would be introduced to the game of sled hockey. Within eight years of first trying out the sport, he was called up to his first world championship team. Pauls made his Paralympic debut at the Paralympic Winter Games Vancouver 2010, where he was the youngest player on the team at 17. He would later serve as captain for the U.S. sled hockey team at the 2018 and 2022 Paralympic Games. Pauls is the only sled hockey player to win four Paralympic gold medals. He is the author of “Lessons Learned: My Journey to the Podium” and hopes to be a professional hockey coach when his sled hockey career is finished.

Pearl Outlaw's journey with vision loss began at age nine with a diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Now 27, she's experienced the full progression of RP—from night blindness in childhood to using a cane in high school, to a rapid transition in 2018 that left her almost completely without vision within months. Her introduction to Nordic skiing came in 2019 while attending the Carroll Center for the Blind in Boston. After taking a semester off college to learn how to navigate life without sight, she got involved with New England Ski for Light. The following year, she reached out to BethAnn Chamberlain, the US Para Nordic development coach and is pursuing that sport, She is also attending her third The Hartford Ski Spectacular in Breckenridge, Colorado this month.

Bob Balk is a 6X Paralympian and Paralympic medalist, representing the U.S. in both summer and winter games for over three decades. He has competed in Nordic skiing, the pentathalon, and para canoe. He has chaired the IPC Athletes Council. Now, he's racing down ice tracks at 70 miles per hour with a singular goal: getting para bobsled recognized as an official Paralympic sport.

Gene Calantoc joined the U.S. Army as a Combat Engineer in 2011 and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012-2013 with the 101st Screaming Eagles. A motorcycle accident in March 2020 led to his medical retirement and it was during his recovery at Fort Sam Houston when Gene discovered adaptive sports. He has competed at the DOD Warrior Games and plays with the Texas Parasport wheelchair basketball team. As a Move United Warfighters Ambassador, he is interested in helping other veterans be active in sports and recreation as well.

Shawn Meredith attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was a varsity athlete on their world-renowned wheelchair track team. He earned numerous national championships, national records, and four world records while at Illinois, and represented Team USA twice at the Paralympic Games in 1992 and 1996, winning a total of 5 gold and one silver medals. Shawn also played wheelchair rugby for the Fighting Illini, the first collegiate team to qualify for the National Championship tournament. He was a player and assistant coach for the Texas Stampede. This past July, Shawn was inducted into the National Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame.

Kenley Teller was five years old when she started with adaptive sports, after going on a ski trip with Outdoors For All, a Move United member organization in Washington State. There, she was told about a swimming program and she has been swimming at the club level ever since. Kenley also started swimming at several of the para swim meets, including the Jimi Flowers Classic, The Hartford Nationals, and some international competitions. Kenley and her dad Aaron joins us in conversation.