Paralympic medalist and World Games record holder Sandy Hanebrink joins us to talk about her journey from St. Louis to the 1996 games in Atlanta. We discuss how the treatment of Paralympic athletes has progressed and where more investment needs to be made in athletes with disabilities.



 



You can find Sandy at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-hanebrink-otr-l-24432029



To find out more about the Carvan for Disability Justice and Freedom: https://thedisabilitycaravan.com



 



Full transcript available at:

Michelle Bishop:

Oh, God. Okay. Are we ready, Jack?

Jack Rosen:

Ready as we'll ever be.

Michelle Bishop:

Oh, that's scary and not at all comforting. *Laughs* Okay, give me a sec.

Jack Rosen:

Today we're sitting down with Sandy Hanebrink, who is executive director of Touch the Future. She's a occupational therapist and has worked with the Neuro-Abilities Advisory Committee for the United Nations G3ict, which is under the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She's an accessibility expert and she is also a Paralympian.

Jack Rosen:

Sandy, do you want to introduce yourself?

Sandy Hanebrink:

Hey, it's great to be here with you guys. I think you pretty much covered it, Jack. I am Sandy Hanebrink, I am all those things he said, and I'm just happy to be here with you guys today.

Michelle Bishop:

Sandy, thank you so much. We're excited to have you here. Actually, you have such an amazing list of credentials I've now thought of like five different podcast episodes we could interview you for on different topics, but this one is actually our Olympic special, so I was wondering if you could start by telling us a little bit about your history with the Paralympics and how you got involved.

Sandy Hanebrink:

So actually I got involved back in the glory days in the '80s when rehab was kind of exploding and custom equipment and things were exploding. And I was a patient at St. Mary's Rehab in St. Louis and was introduced to an adaptive sports program at the Jewish Community Center Association. It was an adaptive fitness program that had racquetball and whatever type that, and that was my first introduction to some of the guys who were doing disabled sports. So I learned about wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis and racquetball during my time in that program and started competing with the local wheelchair sports program in St. Louis, as well as playing tennis. And so I got introduced because I was invited to be part of a development team for Team USA to the Pan American Games in Venezuela. And so we competed in Venezuela as part of the Team USA and got a gold medal in wheelchair basketball. The next year I played in the U.S. Open in the Quad A division for wheelchair tennis, and I beat the guys. So I kind of caught the tennis bug. And then I started learning more about different sports and competing in different events and trying different wheelchair sports events because St. Mary's sponsored many wheelchair sports teams. So they had people doing road races and track and field, and they had a wheelchair softball team, of course wheelchair basketball, and then tennis.

Sandy Hanebrink:

So that's where I got my start. And then after I went to occupational therapy school, I actually moved to South Carolina where my parents were. And part of what I did while I was going to school was start a wheelchair sports program and get involved with the regional wheelchair games, the state games that were happening, which was then called the Southeastern Wheelchair Games. And that's when I started trying different sports and did field events and competed in swimming. I went on to win the National Wheelchair Athle...