The four-legged tennis expert from Utah was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame

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LOA, Wayne County When Rick Draney started playing wheelchair tennis on four legs, his sister pointed out that he had a hard time getting into the sport. He had to tape the bat to his hand, he explained, and when he swung the bat to hit the ball, it often didn’t go over the net.

“I just said, ‘Why would you do that to yourself?’ Debbie Rime said as she reminisced about the past. “He just looked at me and said, ‘What else am I going to do?'” You know, so from then on I realized that you can’t limit another person with your perspective.”

Through her own resilience and the support of others, including Rime, Draney has come a long way in her tennis skills. So far, in fact, that this Saturday in Newport, Rhode Island, Loa, Wayne County, will be the first four-legged tennis player to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Draney is one of seven wheelchair tennis players inducted in the history of the sport.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized and included,” Draney said. “Somehow to think that I’ve been considered, that my accomplishments and contributions have been deemed worthy of being included in the halls of honor with all those other individuals is incredibly humbling to me.”

The athlete was nominated for the award in November 2022, and after a few months of review, the International Tennis Hall of Fame announced that they would induct her and another wheelchair tennis athlete, Esther Vergeer, into the Hall of Fame.

“This is the first time two wheelchair tennis players have been inducted in the same year,” Draney added.

Draney is not only world famous in tennis, as he has been a three-time champion No. 1 In the International Tennis Federation Quadruple in singles, he also won three national championships with the Sharp Shadow wheelchair rugby team and received a gold medal in wheelchair rugby with Team USA in 1994 and the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, Australia.

With his accomplishments and skills, Draney has used his knowledge to teach dozens of paralyzed and quadriplegic athletes to compete at their best in wheelchair tennis.

Rime added that Draney “was basically the quad tennis player that put quad tennis on the map.”

“My participation gave me an opportunity, gave me an opportunity, not only for what I was able to experience and achieve in my life, but to help try to advocate for opportunities and opportunities for other quads around the world,” Draney said.

However, the journey to Draney’s current success was not simple.

Let’s decide how to proceed after the tragedy

When Draney was 19, he was seriously injured in a car accident, which left him a quadriplegic.

“He was becoming independent. He was on his way to Germany on a mission, and everything changed in an instant, really through no fault of his own,” Rime said. “When this happened, it was such a bleak future.”

Originally an athlete who had loved sports and the outdoors, Draney was just trying to get through one day at a time, she said. After his physical rehabilitation, he re-enrolled at a university in Southern California, and in one of his first classes sat next to another student in a wheelchair.

“He asked me if I was into sports and I was still fresh out of the rehab hospital,” Draney said. “He told me about a wheelchair tennis program at another college in Southern California, and at first I thought, man, I’m having trouble getting through the day. How in the world can I even think about playing the sport again?

After encouragement from a classmate, Draney decided to go for wheelchair tennis training. Immediately, he faced several battles.

First, he said his arm retained about 5% of his motor control, making it difficult to hold the club. It was also difficult to turn in the wheelchair, stay in the chair and move quickly in it, Draney added.

He began experimenting by taking a bandage and wrapping his hand around the handle of a tennis racket; However, he had trouble swinging it properly to even hit the ball.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, and you know, there wasn’t really anybody teaching or coaching most quads (fours) to start tennis. A lot of it was trial and error, so I got frustrated and felt like, ‘Well, I’m not going to do it again,'” Draney said. couple.”

That’s when Draney really started experimenting with how he held the bat and moved the wheelchair forward to get to the ball and hit it.

Guided to success

“When he started, it was a completely different world, in that you couldn’t just look on YouTube and figure out how to do this,” Rime said. “It was all trial and error.”

Draney added that in order to strap the bat to his hand, he “looked at the options available,” one of which was sports tape.

The athlete initially attached the tape around his hand and the handle of the racket with an adhesive surface, which caused pain and other problems in his hand. Then he tried another solution: wrapping his hand with the adhesive side of the tape facing out.

“Now I had a nice sticky surface around the grip, in the grip of the club, and that stickiness then translated into better contact and better movement, better mobility when I pushed with the grip,” Draney said.

He then attached his legs and feet to the wheelchair, making it easier for him to stay seated, while the club became a simple extension of his arm.

When Draney practiced and played, being able to get outdoors and play sports gave him hope for the future despite the difficulties of the present, he said.

“There was a future again, and it was exciting again, and I was grateful for that,” Draney said. “It was the enjoyment of being outside, feeling the sun on my face, sweating, just hanging out with other people and just enjoying the sport for the sake of the sport. So it was a part of my life that I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, and it re-energized me and thought, ‘Well if I can do this, what else can I do?'”

Thanks to the changes he made, Draney began playing competitively and began his career in 1984.

Draney entered his first open tournament in Fresno, where he competed and beat other four-legged players. He went on to compete in the US Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships and made it all the way to the finals.

The athlete won 12 singles and six doubles at the Super Singles level with five British Opens and seven US Open titles, spending a total of 289 weeks in the singles top 10 in the Quad division rankings.

While competing, he noticed that open competitions had far more paralyzed players than quadrupedal players. He noted that the races gave him “an opportunity to maybe help bring a little bit more of a spotlight to the quad division.”

Draney continued to shine a spotlight on the quad division by serving as tournament committee chairman for the US Open Tennis Association Wheelchair Championships for nine years. The athlete also received the United States Tennis Association’s Brad Parks Award in 2012 for his strong performance in wheelchair tennis.

After competing with so many different athletes, Draney said she realized, “They really are professional athletes who just happen to sit down instead of standing up to do what they do.”

“You never know how much of an impact you make”

While serving and making friends in her wheelchair tennis games, Draney added that many loved ones and friends, including a classmate who encouraged her to take up wheelchair tennis in college, have pushed her to success.

“I’m forever grateful for their efforts, their time, their service, their sacrifices, their support. I’m so grateful for the people and places and experiences I’ve been able to have,” Draney said.

He also hopes that the competitions and successes will encourage other players with disabilities to continue with hope despite the challenges.

“You never know how much of an impact or difference you’re going to make,” Draney said. “It could be one person at a time, one-on-one, that you’re working with. It could be a group of individuals at a camp or a clinic. It could be that you’re competing around the world and doing what you’re doing that others are watching and watching and seeing over and over again, just like I saw them and said, ‘Well if they can do it, maybe I can do it.'”

Draney hasn’t just influenced other players; her sister said Draney’s ability to make her future brighter through resilience and creativity has helped her overcome her own trials.

“Your life takes a different turn, and you know, it can be better than you imagined, or at least better than you thought it was going to be,” Rime said.

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