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Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | Long Beach, California, U.S. | May 24, 1973||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Writing career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation | author, motivational speaker, rehab counselor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Genre | biography, children's books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Notable works | Tragedy on the Mountain, Playground Lessons-Friendship & Forgiveness: Harley and his wheelchair | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Website | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
www www | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Paralympics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Event(s) | Team Rugby, Individual Tennis | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National finals | 1996–1998, 2006, 2009–2010 National Quad Rugby Champion2007 Japan Open Tennis Championships Doubles Champion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Brent Poppen (born May 24, 1973) is an American disability advocate, author, substitute teacher, [1] and Paralympian. [2]
He has authored two books, [3] a biography titled "Tragedy on the Mountain, [4] " which details his journey from paralysis to Paralympics, and a children's book titled "Playground Lessons-Friendship & Forgiveness: Harley and his wheelchair. [5] "
Poppen was injured in a wrestling accident on February 18, 1990, while visiting a Christian church camp located in Lake Hume, California in the Fresno Mountain range of the Central Valley. [6] As a result of the tumble where the boy Poppen was wrestling with fell on top of his head, Poppen's spinal cord had an incomplete break at the level of the sixth cervical vertebra, rendering him a quadriplegic immediately. He was air lifted from a rural hospital, Fresno Community Hospital, to Long Beach Memorial Hospital, where he spent three months rehabilitating, and was released on May 23, 1990. He was 16 years old at the time of his accident, and released from the hospital the day before his 17th birthday. He is considered a limited motion quadriplegic, since he has limited function in his arms and hands.
Poppen attended Millikan High School, in Long Beach, for his senior year shortly after his accident. He went on to earn his associate degree from Long Beach City College, and then his bachelor's degree in social science from Chapman University. [7]
Poppen received his bachelor's degree, and subsequently his substitute teaching certificate, but is most widely known as an athlete. He has competed in two consecutive Paralympics, Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008, two world games and numerous world team cups. He has a bronze medal from the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, where he competed with the American Wheelchair Rugby Team. He is a National Quad Rugby Champion 6 times over, from 1996 to 1998, and again in 2006. [2] He was also one of the players on screen in "Murderball," an award-winning 2005 documentary about quadriplegics who play wheelchair rugby and the rivalry between the U.S. and Canadian teams leading up to the 2004 Paralympic Games. [8]
Since retiring from the professional sporting arena, Poppen spends his summers teaching adaptive water skiing lessons, among other sports. He is an avid wakeboarder and spends much time on the water when possible. [9]
In early 2014, Poppen was awarded the Curt Condon Spirit Award at the Southern California Tennis Association's Annual Meeting & Awards, held in the Straus Stadium Clubhouse at the Los Angeles Tennis Center – UCLA. [10]
Since Poppen chooses to no longer compete professionally, he has set his sights on helping others. Poppen is part of the rehabilitation team at Children's Hospital in Fresno, California, providing additional resources to families in need, [8] a substitute teacher, and is blossoming a motivational speaking career touching different levels of schools, currently in Southern and Central California. He has spoken at dozens of schools incorporating his books and his message that anything is possible. [11] He found his love for addressing children while competing internationally and speaking to students attending the competitions in locations such as New Zealand, Athens, Beijing, and Buenos Aires. He developed a program after authoring his books and spends anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days speaking to students and staff at schools that have signed up.
He has been written up in many different outlets, including Paso Robles Magazine, [12] Sports 'N Spokes: The Magazine for Wheelchair Sports and Recreation, [9] The King City Rustler, [13] Ventura County Star, [14] The Long Beach Press Telegram, [15] and has been a keynote speaker at California PTA's Statewide Convention in 2013. [16]
Archery at the 2004 Summer Paralympics took place at the Olympic Baseball Centre in Athens. There were three categories:
Craig Hospital is a neurorehabilitation and research hospital in Englewood, Colorado specializing in spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation and research. Craig is a 93-bed, private, not-for-profit, free-standing long-term acute care and rehabilitation hospital that provides a comprehensive system of inpatient and outpatient medical care, rehabilitation, neurosurgical rehabilitative care, and long-term follow-up services. Half of Craig's patients come from outside of Colorado each year, and in the past four years Craig has treated patients from all 50 states and several foreign countries. At any given time, the staff at Craig treats approximately 55 inpatients with spinal cord injuries, 30 with traumatic brain injuries, and 50-60 outpatients. Craig provides housing for out-of-state families and outpatients, including the first 30 days free for families of new inpatients.
The United States sent a delegation to compete at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China. A total of 213 U.S. competitors took part in 18 sports; the only 2 sports Americans did not compete in were soccer 5-a-side and 7-a-side. The American delegation included 16 former members of the U.S. military, including 3 veterans of the Iraq War. Among them were shot putter Scott Winkler, who was paralyzed in an accident in Iraq, and swimmer Melissa Stockwell, a former United States Army officer who lost her left leg to a roadside bomb in the war.
David Wagner is an American wheelchair tennis player. Paralyzed from the mid-chest down and with thirty percent function in his hands, he competes in the quad division. He plays by taping the tennis racket to his hand. He is currently ranked number three in the world in singles and number two in doubles.
Francis Ettore Ponta was an Australian Paralympic competitor and coach. He competed in several sports including basketball, pentathlon, swimming and fencing. A paraplegic, he lost the use of both his legs after a tumour was removed from his spinal column when he was a teenager. Ponta was a member of Australia's first national wheelchair basketball team, and is credited with expanding the sport of wheelchair basketball in Western Australia. At the end of his competitive career, he became a coach, working with athletes such as Louise Sauvage, Priya Cooper, Madison de Rozario, Bruce Wallrodt and Bryan Stitfall. He died on 1 June 2011 at the age of 75 after a long illness.
Nazim Erdem, is an Australian wheelchair rugby Paralympic gold and silver medalist. He has won two gold and two silver medals at five Paralympics from 2000 to 2016.
Brad Dubberley is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair rugby Head Coach and former athlete. He won a silver medal as an athlete at the 2000 Sydney Games and was the head coach at the 2008 Beijing Games in the mixed wheelchair rugby event. He is the head coach of the Australian Wheelchair Rugby team known as the Australian Steelers.
Ryan Scott, is a Paralympic wheelchair rugby competitor from Australia. In four Paralympics, Scott has won a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics and gold medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Grant Boxall is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair rugby player.
Ben Newton, is a wheelchair rugby player. He was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in wheelchair rugby.
Dan Buckingham is a New Zealand wheelchair rugby player, and was a member of the national team, the Wheel Blacks for 16 years. He worked as CEO for the Television Production Company Attitude, and is now the CE of Able (www.able.co.nz).
Curtis Palmer is a New Zealand-born wheelchair rugby player who initially played for the New Zealand national team Wheel Blacks. In 2013 he switched to play for the Australia national wheelchair rugby team.
Sam McIntosh is an Australian Paralympic athlete who races in the T52 100m, 200m, and 400m events. He holds 3 Australian National Records and 2 Oceania Records. He represented Australia at the 2012 London Paralympic Games, 2016 Rio Paralympics and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics in athletics as well as the 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023 Para Athletic World Championships. He has been selected for the 2024 Paris Paralympics - his fourth Games.
Brent Lakatos is a Canadian wheelchair racer in the T53 classification. Lakatos has represented Canada at three Summer Paralympics, and at the 2012 Games he won three silver medals in the sprint and mid-distance events. In 2013 Lakatos reached the pinnacle of his sport when he collected four gold medals at the IPC Athletics World Championships and became world champion at his classification in the 100m, 200m and 400m events.
Simone Kues is a German 1.0 point national wheelchair basketball player who plays in the wheelchair basketball league for Hamburg SV. She joined the national team, and participated in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, at which the German team came fourth. She won bronze at the World Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Amsterdam in 2006. Her team were won the European championship in 2005, 2007 and 2009. She won a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing. The women's national team were voted Team of the Year in disabled sports in 2008, and President Horst Köhler awarded them the Silver Laurel Leaf, Germany's highest German sports award.
Harry Boniface Prabhu is an Indian quadriplegic wheelchair tennis player, one of the pioneers of the sport in India and a medal winner at the 1998 World Championships. He was awarded the Padma Shree, the fourth highest civilian award, by the Government of India, in 2014.
Peter Genyn is a Paralympian sportsman from Belgium. Initially Genyn competed as a wheelchair rugby player before switching to track and field athletics in 2014 where he competes in category T51 sprint events. In 2016 he became the world record holder in the T51 men's 400 metres sprint.
Victor Salvemini was an Australian Paralympic athlete from Western Australia. As a wheelchair athlete, he competed in several sports including archery, basketball and track sprinting in the 1970s. A paraplegic, he lost the use of both his legs after a car accident in Fremantle, Western Australia in 1961 when he was 14 years old.
David Willsie is a Canadian coach and former Wheelchair rugby player.