Nick Mayhugh needs to make children conscious of Paralympics significance – NBC New York


Inside Nick Mayhugh’s closet is a suitcase stuffed with gold medals.

“I do not essentially actually care about them,” he mentioned of the {hardware} he gained on the Paralympics.

The medals symbolize victory. However for Mayhugh, and plenty of others who compete within the Paralympics, victory is achieved not on the end line, however on the beginning block. That’s the place adversity is defeated just by being in place to compete on a world stage.

“What I care about,” Mayhugh mentioned, “is the influence that I could make on the generations to come back.”

To get to the Paralympics, Mayhugh traded in his soccer cleats for observe spikes. Switching footwear and altering sports activities in an effort to fulfil a dream was a minor impediment for somebody who as soon as retaught himself the right way to stroll.

“One of many major issues I did after I was youthful, I’d lock myself in my room so no person may are available, and I’d simply stroll backwards and forwards and educate myself the right way to stroll with out a limp in my left leg,” Mayhugh mentioned on an episode of NBC’s “My New Favourite Olympian.”

Now 28 years previous, he not solely walks with out a limp, he runs for gold medals within the Paralympics, successful three on the Tokyo Paralympics. His dream will as soon as once more change into actuality this week in Paris, as a former soccer participant as soon as advised him he’d by no means play sports activities once more runs for gold in observe.

The Virginia native was vocal about his goals at an early age: go to school at his mom’s alma mater the College of Maryland, change into knowledgeable soccer participant and play for the nationwide group.  

His household was supportive, significantly his grandparents, Shirley and Invoice Mayhugh, who had been regulars at his soccer video games.

Mayhugh’s household, nevertheless, was unaware of the challenges that he was silently battling. The left aspect of his physique wouldn’t perform in the identical manner as the appropriate aspect.

Mayhugh recalled a second when his grandpa, who hosted an in a single day music present on radio station WMAL and a pregame present for the NFL group now referred to as the Washington Commanders, was giving him piano classes.

“I keep in mind sitting on the piano with him and making an attempt to show me the right way to play a tune and him simply getting pissed off and being like, ‘Why cannot you do that?'” Mayhugh mentioned. “I used to be like, ‘Granddaddy, I do not know. I do not know.’ And I used to be simply laughing about it and joking about it. He thought I used to be simply being a goofy child.”

Even when strolling, Mayhugh needed to make a concerted effort to select up his left foot to stop it from dragging.

“We by no means knew something about Nick’s state of affairs,” his father Scott Mayhugh mentioned. “Me as a father, simply figured Nick was right-side dominant. So, every time we might have conversations or sports activities or something, we might all the time say, , simply work more durable in your left aspect.”

Mayhugh did all he may to cover his situation.

“I wished to be one of the best that I may very well be from a really, very early age,” he mentioned. And [his family] did not see an issue with it. They had been like, okay, properly, he is higher than all the opposite children, , his left foot, his left hand, it’s what it’s.”

When Mayhugh was 14 years previous, he was rushed to the hospital after struggling a grand mal seizure, which is characterised by a lack of consciousness and violent contractions. An MRI revealed that he had cerebral palsy, the results of a stroke he had in utero.

“It created a void in that aspect of his mind,” Scott Mayhugh mentioned. “And that one little space is concerning the measurement of a nickel is simply stuffed with water, which affected the mobility of the left aspect of his physique.”

It additionally jeopardized his goals, saying it “flipped my world the wrong way up.”

“The primary factor is, is he going to dwell?” Mayhugh mentioned. “You already know, is he wholesome? After which they reply these questions. And I requested extra questions of when can I play soccer once more? After which trying me lifeless within the eye and telling me they do not know if I will ever have the ability to play soccer once more.”

For Mayhugh, these phrases grew to become a supply of motivation.

“That was his angle from day one,” Scott Mayhugh mentioned. “And he mentioned, ‘I will show him fallacious.’ And right here we’re.”

NBC Sports activities’ Senior Olympics Editor Nick Zaccardi breaks down what paralympian Nick Mayhugh brings to Group USA.

He went on to play Division I soccer at Radford College. At 22 years previous, he was made conscious of the existence of the Paralympics, one thing he mentioned his dad and mom have apologized to him about for not realizing of the competitors earlier in his life.

“It is irritating that they must apologize to me. It is not their fault,” he mentioned. “It is the group’s fault. It is the world’s. The lack of understanding, the dearth of schooling, the lack of knowledge in all people to coach concerning the Paralympics, educate about completely different disabilities which can be capable of compete.”

Mayhugh made the U.S. Males’s Nationwide Para Soccer group in 2017. Two years later, he helped the group win its first bronze medal on the Para Pan American Video games and was named the U.S. Soccer Participant of the 12 months with a Incapacity.

With a part of his dream fulfilled, he got down to full one other: competing on the Paralympics. Soccer, nevertheless, was not one of many sports activities contested three years in the past at Tokyo. So, he switched sports activities.

He went on to win the 100m T37 and 200m T37, setting world document occasions in each, and in addition gained gold within the 4x100m medley.

However once more, he would not do it for the medals, which is why they’re inside a suitcase in his closet.  

“As a result of I do know that at some point these medals aren’t going to imply something,” mentioned Mayhugh, who hopes to change into a broadcaster like his grandpa. “And after after I depart this earth, they’re gone. No person’s going to do not forget that. They are going to keep in mind the influence that I had on the group.

“And I hope that there is not one other child that has to dwell 22 years of their life not realizing that there was a group that they may very well be accepted in, that they may excel in, and so they may very well be celebrated inside and simply be themselves and simply be glad, , competing.”

Mayhugh was interviewed for My New Favourite Paralympian, a sequence that tells the tales of Group USA’s most inspiring athletes and the causes they champion. Subscribe to My New Favourite Paralympian wherever you get your podcasts.

Nick Mayhugh after setting a world document within the males’s 200m T37 on the Paralympic Video games in 2021 in Tokyo. (Picture by Helene Wiesenhaan/BSR Company/Getty Pictures)

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