The Manchester Enterprise
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Manchester native wheels into Paralympics
Paul Schulte qualifies a second time to play wheelchair basketball
By Alexandra Sondeen, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: July 10, 2008
A lot of children dream of becoming professional athletes and leading their teams to a world championship. Paul Schulte, a 29-year-old Manchester native now living in Bradenton, Fla., was no different.
Advertisement
Schulte practiced for hours in his backyard as a young boy, pushing himself so he could join the list of elite ahtletes. Even after a car accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, he never quit.
His determination has led him to the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, China. He is a captain of the U.S. wheelchair basketball team playing point guard. This is Schulte's second trip to the Paralympics, having played in the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia and earning a bronze medal.
Schulte said his obsession with sports began at a young age.
"I know that every seven-year-old wants to be a professional athlete, but I remember my mom telling me that she was actually pretty worried about me," he said. "Every day the only thing I would talk about was recess and who won - and then I'd go out and practice for two hours."
The Road to Recovery
On March 6, 1989, one day after his 10th birthday, Schulte was involved in a head-on collision in Chelsea. He was wearing a lap-belt in the backseat, but it didn't save him from extensive injury.
"When we hit, my upper body went forward really quickly and fractured a lower vertebra," he said.
The injury left him paralyzed and destroyed his dreams of playing for the Manchester High School football team.
"I thought the MHS football team was just God's gift," Schulte said. "I knew I wanted to play on that team more than anything in the world. I was crushed after my accident that I wouldn't get that opportunity."
Schulte grew up playing baseball in the backyard with his best friend, Manchester native Jimmy Donnellon. The boys spent every summer together playing sports and video games.
"One of my best memories is that his parents had a baseball field in their backyard," Donnellon said. "So every summer was spent playing baseball and jumping in the pool, then going and playing 'Legends of Zelda.'"
When Schulte's accident happened, his long-time friend was one of the first to get the call.
"When we got that phone call, I was devastated," Donnellon said. "I don't think, even to this day, that I've ever cried more than that. I didn't know how to act."
With the support of his family, friends and community, Schulte said he avoided depression after being paralyzed.
His neighbors banded together to purchase the brand new, original Nintendo game system for him to play at the hospital. It was the first way that Manchester began to lift him up.
"It became my goal to beat every new video game that I had," Schulte said. "It meant a lot to me when I was alone at the hospital to have something to work on and work towards. That was really important."
Schulte soon returned to middle school and found the expectations were just the same as before the accident.
"All of my teachers throughout my years at Manchester treated me just like any other kid," he said. "An injury that severe usually ends up affecting how people define themselves. And while it really shakes your world up, having friends, family and teachers treating you exactly the same as before was a really big thing for me."
Donnellon says that even as a kid, Schulte never wanted special treatment and was always self-dependent.
"Paul was always one to say that he didn't like when people gave him special treatment," he said. "The way the Paul was, he never asked for help or expected anything."
Schulte continued playing sports with his friends. He and Donnellon kept pushing each other. But it wasn't until age 14 that he got his first chance at playing wheelchair basketball when he attended a practice in Ann Arbor.
"I was terrible at first but I loved the fact that I had no chance to win," Schulte said. "I loved the fact that it was such a challenge to play against grown adults whose arms were bigger than my head."
When he was 16 years old, Schulte moved on to play for a junior team out of Grand Rapids before being sponsored by Top End, a wheelchair company. He received a full scholarship to play basketball for the University of Texas and led his team to the national championship his senior year.
He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering after five years in college and now works for Top End in Florida, designing and perfecting a basketball chair that bears his name.
But through it all, Schulte has continued playing wheelchair basketball. In 2002, he led Team USA to the world championship gold medal. He was named "Most Valuable Player" for the tournament.
Current Endeavors
Schulte trains every day after finishing work at the Top End office. He lifts weights and works on shooting hoops.
"When I'm working out, I'll sometimes have somebody come up to me out of nowhere and say 'Hey man, you're real inspiring,'" he said. "I think sometimes people are surprised that someone in my circumstance can be as independent and active."
He said this year's U.S. wheelchair basketball team is very young and fast.
"It's the most talented team I've been involved with," he said.
Schulte will travel to Beijing with the U.S. Paralympics team delegations on Aug. 27 and will return Sept. 17.
Despite all of his success, Schulte has not lost sight of his humble roots in Michigan.
"Paul is one of the most humble people that I know," Donnellon said. "He's more humble now than he ever has been I think. He's always trying to make people happy."
During school, Schulte could often be found giving rides to kids in his wheelchair.
"Any time you saw him around kids he was giving them rides or making them smile and laugh," Schulte's best friend said. "Everybody loved him."
The Paralympian doesn't mind when people look after him at the mall or other public places. He said it's just normal human interest.
"You don't necessarily see somebody in a nice wheelchair every day rolling by you pretty quickly," he said. "So I don't blame anybody for taking a look at me or my chair."
With all his experience in the sport, Schulte has become a mentor to the younger players.
"I do feel like I have a responsibility to make sure that we carry ourselves in a way that our country would be proud of, win or lose," he said.
Donnellon said that Schulte was a mentor to him as well. He said that his best friend has more determination than anyone he knows.
"Besides my mom, Paul Schulte has probably had the most influence on my life," he said. "People might consider that a pretty bad hand to be dealt but he's turned it into a blessing. People admire Paul because of his humility and his determination."
He said Schulte taught him to always keep a positive attitude.
"It's in the little things that we do that make a real man," Donnellon said. "It's working every day. It's going to the gym when you're tired. It's smiling and giving handshakes to people that don't really expect it."
Little over a year ago, Schulte created the Paul Schulte Foundation. The organization raises money to send disabled kids to wheelchair basketball camps sponsored by universities.
"It was one of those camps that opened my eyes," he said. "I could go to class, be independent and I just saw that the sky was the limit. I want that opportunity for as many kids as I can help."
In the first year of operation, the new organization sponsored five students with financial need. They attended camps in Wisconsin and Illinois.
"The whole point of that foundation was to create a vehicle for us to make donations to universities to get more scholarships out there for disabled youth," he said.
Even though he's traveled around the world playing basketball, Schulte hasn't forgotten what Manchester did for him.
"Growing up in a small American town really impacted me," he said. "Of all places I've been, the place where I would want to raise my kids is where the community is looking out for them. I felt like the community was always looking out for me."
Though he's not yet a father, Schulte said he's hoping that day will come soon. And when it does, he'll be looking for a place like Manchester in which to raise his family.
"When somebody first graduates from Manchester, they couldn't really say how it has affected them," he said. "But I would say that I want to raise my kids in some place just like that town - where you know the teachers by their first names and the teachers know your parents.
"I still love Manchester."
For more information about Schulte's career, training, foundation and accomplishments, visit www.paulschulte.com.
Alexandra Sondeen is a college intern with The Manchester Enterprise. She can be reached at asondeen@emich.edu.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
TOP JOBS
