July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Nothing slows him down
Nothing slows him down
Young people today are often criticized for sitting inside and playing video games instead of being outside and getting exercise. There are even television commercials urging children to get out and “Play 60”.
Evan Mathias stands in stark contrast to that stereotype.
“I think I just like to get out and be active,” says Evan. “I don’t really like to just sit in one spot for hours.”
The Jay County High School freshman is an avid golfer. He swims. He picked up tennis this year.
He played baseball and basketball growing up.
Like some of his classmates, he’ll be a three-sport high school athlete. And he’s a double amputee.
First steps
Evan, who is 14 years old, was born with congenital defects that his parents, Matt and Tiffany, didn’t know about despite multiple ultrasounds.
He had no knee in his right leg. There was one long bone with a bend in it, but no joint.
He had just one bone, the tibia, in his lower left leg. And his feet were formed incorrectly.
“We were shocked to say the least,” says Matt, “didn’t know what to think.”
Matt and Tiffany took Evan to Riley Children’s hospital in Indianapolis.
See Nothing page 8B
Continued from page 1B
“That place really puts things into perspective for you,” Tiffany says, “because you feel pretty bad going down there but then when you see all the other problems of all the other kids you think … this is really no big deal.
“Doctor (Thomas) Kling said, ‘You just take him home. You treat him like any other kid, make him happy, discipline him, everything that you would do if you weren’t down here, and I’ll make sure that he walks.’”
Matt said he and his wife also talked to other people in similar situations about what to expect and how to handle things. But he’s not sure how much they took some of that advice, which included that they should wait and let Evan make his own decision about amputation.
“We never thought that,” says Matt. “We thought we wanted to get them done as soon as we could so he could learn to walk quickly.”
So his parents made the decision to amputate.
The surgery was scheduled for when Evan was 10 months old. But it seems, even at such a young age, he wanted to be on the go.
“He was very active,” says Tiffany. “And he was pulling himself up and trying to walk. … When he stood, there was just no balance at all.”
Tiffany called Kling, concerned that Evan might hurt himself. He assured her that injury to the legs was not an issue, but he also didn’t want to hold Evan back. So the surgery was moved up by two months.
Surgeons amputated Evan’s right leg at the point where his knee would have been, and amputated his left leg below the knee. Both procedures where done in the same surgery.
After eight weeks, he returned to the hospital to have a third cast put on, but he was healing so well that he didn’t need it. Instead, he went to get the molds for his first set of prosthetics.
“We picked those up on Jan. 29,” says Tiffany. “He turned one on Feb. 16, and he was walking. He just took off.”
“People told us to wait, let him make up his own mind (about surgery),” Matt adds. “But he could be nine or 10 before he makes that decision, and then he would have missed out on everything that little kids get to do. So we just did it, and he was walking, just like that.”
Never stopped
Evan hasn’t stopped moving since taking his first steps.
When Tiffany took her son to get his second set of prosthetic legs, she asked to have a set with a knee in the right leg. The prosthetist was leery, saying he thought Evan would end up falling, unable to control the joint.
But, Evan’s parents thought he needed the knee, so the prosthetist obliged and gave him one with that could be adjusted.
“Within about three or four weeks I had it about as loose as it would go,” says Tiffany. “And he was just walking around. He continues to amaze his prosthetist, because he is so active.”
So active, in fact, that he’s “injured” his right knee more than once. He’s broken several of his mechanical knees — called the “Total Knee” — something Osur, the company that makes them, thought was not possible for a child to do.
“They have actually made a couple of changes to their design based on Evan, because he was just thrashing them,” says Tiffany of the legs, which cost about $25,000 and are paid for by way of Children’s Special Health Care Services.
“This is the heavy-duty one too,” Evan chimes in, pointing to his knee.
“He’s not really easy on components,” Tiffany adds.
An ace at golf
Like many fathers, Matt had dreamed of playing sports with his son.
“You always wonder if he’ll be able to play baseball, basketball, everything,” says Matt. “Of course I was worried, but we’re all golfers in our family and we knew he could play golf eventually.
“He had clubs at my baby shower, I think,” Tiffany adds.
So Evan started out with golf. He also played Portland Junior League baseball until he was about 10 or 11, when his lack of speed started to become an issue. And he tried basketball for a while as well.
But, eventually, he started focusing more on golf and swimming.
“Golf (is my favorite sport) because you can play golf with any kind of disability,” says Evan. “It’s just fun to get out.”
Evan, a regular at Portland Golf Club, played in his first National Amputee Golf Association (NAGA) when he was 10. The experience was important, beyond athletics, for Evan and his parents.
Tiffany and Matt had both been concerned about the questions their son might ask some day. Would he be worried that people might not want to hire him, date him, marry him because he is an amputee?
One of the first people they met at that first NAGA tournament was a double arm amputee. He was a pilot.
“I thought, ‘He’s probably never going to ask me that now’, because he’s seeing these guys who do everything that anybody would do,” says Tiffany.
“You see that they’re all married. They all have wives and families,” adds Matt. “That’s been pretty important.”
Evan has continued to play in NAGA tournaments — he’s golfed in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee — and in September took part in the NAGA National Amputee Championship.
“I think it’s fun just to see and hear other people’s stories and hear what they’ve gone through,” says Evan. “It’s just really fun to play golf and make friends.”
At the nationals, Evan competed in the division for multiple amputees, shooting a 90 on the first day of competition at Gaylord Springs Golf Links in Nashville. He put together the best round of his life the next day, shooting 36 for nine holes and posting a 77 for the 18-hole round. His score was so good that it bumped him out of the first flight and into the championship flight.
See Nothing page 10B
Continued from page 8B
Evan shot an 89 on the final day of the tournament, which gave him a 256 for his 54-hole total. That was good for fifth place in the championship flight, and would have won the first flight by 24 strokes.
“He’s really good at golf,” says Matt. “He’s better than I am.”
“And he’s met a lot of people, especially through golf. That’s been a blessing, I think, for all of us.”
Inspiration
Evan doesn’t say much about his challenges. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to view them as such.
But it’s clear that his attitude and effort have made an impact on others.
The freshman was a regular for Boys Club activities at Jay Community Center while in middle school, and he still attends now when he’s not practicing for one of his high school sports. He plays dodge ball, basketball and kickball, whatever activity the group is involved in.
When the club resumed giving the Ronnie Hummer Leadership Award last year, Evan was the recipient.
“I think he’s a great example to the other kids,” says JCC boys club director Eric Butcher. “He doesn’t ever let it faze him. Sometimes he’s not as coordinated, obviously, but he’ll fall down and he gets right back up and just keeps playing. He’s always got a good attitude.”
“I just think that someday he could do anything he wanted,” says Nancy Evans, one of Evans teachers during his years at Judge Haynes Elementary School. “The legs aren’t going to make a difference because his attitude is so great.”
While golf and swimming have been long-time diversions for Evan, tennis has not. He picked up the sport for the first time this fall when he went out for the JCHS team.
He earned his first victory, the only junior varsity win of the day for the Patriots, Sept. 15 as he and doubles partner Josh Lykins defeated a duo from Adams Central.
Jay County boys tennis coach Barry Weaver, who is also now coaching Evan on the boys swim team, was impressed by the freshman’s effort on the court. He also said he believes Evan, who was one of the top scorers for the Jay County middle school swim team last season, will earn his first varsity letter in swimming.
“He has some real physical handicaps, but yet, I don’t think he views them that way,” says Weaver. “He doesn’t let it bother him. … His resilience, his attitude, his ability to just get out there and do the best he can has really impressed me.”
When asked about whether he’s excited to get on the golf course for his school in the spring, Evan gives a quick answer.
“Yeah,” he says, “because I think I’ll do well.”
He says he has a goal of advancing out of the sectional tournament. His career-best score would have been good enough for him to reach the regional in each of the three seasons the Patriots have competed at the sectional hosted by Monroe Central at Hickory Hills Golf Club in rural Farmland.
Such an accomplishment wouldn’t shock Charlie Haviza of Portland Golf Club, who has occasionally helped Evan with his game.
“The adjustments he has to make, he works hard at it,” says Haviza. “He’s willing to do whatever it takes … I was very impressed.
“It would not surprise me that before it’s all said and done he’ll be the No. 1 golfer for Jay County. … That’s just the attitude he has. That’s what he wants to work for.”
He’s a regular kid
There is no question that Evan has faced, and continues to face, challenges. Little things in life, such as going up stairs — “I just go up them, slowly,” he says — and finding clothes that fit right are not as easy as they could be.
Still, while his lower limbs look different than most 14-year-olds, he is no different. He doesn’t feel limited.
“I try to do everything,” says Evan. “Even if I do break my leg, I’ll still come to school. I broke my leg in eighth grade, and I still did gym.”
Tiffany says she occasionally hears the typical conversation involving a couple expecting the birth of a child. Someone will ask if they want a boy or a girl. And the couple will respond that they don’t care, as long as the baby is healthy, with 10 fingers and 10 toes.
“And I hear that stuff now and I think, ‘Ah, 10 toes aren’t that great,’” she says.
Evan is doing great without them.
“He’s just a kid, just like everybody else, he’s no different,” says Matt. “You can’t go backwards. You just look forward and hope for the best for him. And nothing has ever slowed him down.”[[In-content Ad]]
Evan Mathias stands in stark contrast to that stereotype.
“I think I just like to get out and be active,” says Evan. “I don’t really like to just sit in one spot for hours.”
The Jay County High School freshman is an avid golfer. He swims. He picked up tennis this year.
He played baseball and basketball growing up.
Like some of his classmates, he’ll be a three-sport high school athlete. And he’s a double amputee.
First steps
Evan, who is 14 years old, was born with congenital defects that his parents, Matt and Tiffany, didn’t know about despite multiple ultrasounds.
He had no knee in his right leg. There was one long bone with a bend in it, but no joint.
He had just one bone, the tibia, in his lower left leg. And his feet were formed incorrectly.
“We were shocked to say the least,” says Matt, “didn’t know what to think.”
Matt and Tiffany took Evan to Riley Children’s hospital in Indianapolis.
See Nothing page 8B
Continued from page 1B
“That place really puts things into perspective for you,” Tiffany says, “because you feel pretty bad going down there but then when you see all the other problems of all the other kids you think … this is really no big deal.
“Doctor (Thomas) Kling said, ‘You just take him home. You treat him like any other kid, make him happy, discipline him, everything that you would do if you weren’t down here, and I’ll make sure that he walks.’”
Matt said he and his wife also talked to other people in similar situations about what to expect and how to handle things. But he’s not sure how much they took some of that advice, which included that they should wait and let Evan make his own decision about amputation.
“We never thought that,” says Matt. “We thought we wanted to get them done as soon as we could so he could learn to walk quickly.”
So his parents made the decision to amputate.
The surgery was scheduled for when Evan was 10 months old. But it seems, even at such a young age, he wanted to be on the go.
“He was very active,” says Tiffany. “And he was pulling himself up and trying to walk. … When he stood, there was just no balance at all.”
Tiffany called Kling, concerned that Evan might hurt himself. He assured her that injury to the legs was not an issue, but he also didn’t want to hold Evan back. So the surgery was moved up by two months.
Surgeons amputated Evan’s right leg at the point where his knee would have been, and amputated his left leg below the knee. Both procedures where done in the same surgery.
After eight weeks, he returned to the hospital to have a third cast put on, but he was healing so well that he didn’t need it. Instead, he went to get the molds for his first set of prosthetics.
“We picked those up on Jan. 29,” says Tiffany. “He turned one on Feb. 16, and he was walking. He just took off.”
“People told us to wait, let him make up his own mind (about surgery),” Matt adds. “But he could be nine or 10 before he makes that decision, and then he would have missed out on everything that little kids get to do. So we just did it, and he was walking, just like that.”
Never stopped
Evan hasn’t stopped moving since taking his first steps.
When Tiffany took her son to get his second set of prosthetic legs, she asked to have a set with a knee in the right leg. The prosthetist was leery, saying he thought Evan would end up falling, unable to control the joint.
But, Evan’s parents thought he needed the knee, so the prosthetist obliged and gave him one with that could be adjusted.
“Within about three or four weeks I had it about as loose as it would go,” says Tiffany. “And he was just walking around. He continues to amaze his prosthetist, because he is so active.”
So active, in fact, that he’s “injured” his right knee more than once. He’s broken several of his mechanical knees — called the “Total Knee” — something Osur, the company that makes them, thought was not possible for a child to do.
“They have actually made a couple of changes to their design based on Evan, because he was just thrashing them,” says Tiffany of the legs, which cost about $25,000 and are paid for by way of Children’s Special Health Care Services.
“This is the heavy-duty one too,” Evan chimes in, pointing to his knee.
“He’s not really easy on components,” Tiffany adds.
An ace at golf
Like many fathers, Matt had dreamed of playing sports with his son.
“You always wonder if he’ll be able to play baseball, basketball, everything,” says Matt. “Of course I was worried, but we’re all golfers in our family and we knew he could play golf eventually.
“He had clubs at my baby shower, I think,” Tiffany adds.
So Evan started out with golf. He also played Portland Junior League baseball until he was about 10 or 11, when his lack of speed started to become an issue. And he tried basketball for a while as well.
But, eventually, he started focusing more on golf and swimming.
“Golf (is my favorite sport) because you can play golf with any kind of disability,” says Evan. “It’s just fun to get out.”
Evan, a regular at Portland Golf Club, played in his first National Amputee Golf Association (NAGA) when he was 10. The experience was important, beyond athletics, for Evan and his parents.
Tiffany and Matt had both been concerned about the questions their son might ask some day. Would he be worried that people might not want to hire him, date him, marry him because he is an amputee?
One of the first people they met at that first NAGA tournament was a double arm amputee. He was a pilot.
“I thought, ‘He’s probably never going to ask me that now’, because he’s seeing these guys who do everything that anybody would do,” says Tiffany.
“You see that they’re all married. They all have wives and families,” adds Matt. “That’s been pretty important.”
Evan has continued to play in NAGA tournaments — he’s golfed in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee — and in September took part in the NAGA National Amputee Championship.
“I think it’s fun just to see and hear other people’s stories and hear what they’ve gone through,” says Evan. “It’s just really fun to play golf and make friends.”
At the nationals, Evan competed in the division for multiple amputees, shooting a 90 on the first day of competition at Gaylord Springs Golf Links in Nashville. He put together the best round of his life the next day, shooting 36 for nine holes and posting a 77 for the 18-hole round. His score was so good that it bumped him out of the first flight and into the championship flight.
See Nothing page 10B
Continued from page 8B
Evan shot an 89 on the final day of the tournament, which gave him a 256 for his 54-hole total. That was good for fifth place in the championship flight, and would have won the first flight by 24 strokes.
“He’s really good at golf,” says Matt. “He’s better than I am.”
“And he’s met a lot of people, especially through golf. That’s been a blessing, I think, for all of us.”
Inspiration
Evan doesn’t say much about his challenges. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to view them as such.
But it’s clear that his attitude and effort have made an impact on others.
The freshman was a regular for Boys Club activities at Jay Community Center while in middle school, and he still attends now when he’s not practicing for one of his high school sports. He plays dodge ball, basketball and kickball, whatever activity the group is involved in.
When the club resumed giving the Ronnie Hummer Leadership Award last year, Evan was the recipient.
“I think he’s a great example to the other kids,” says JCC boys club director Eric Butcher. “He doesn’t ever let it faze him. Sometimes he’s not as coordinated, obviously, but he’ll fall down and he gets right back up and just keeps playing. He’s always got a good attitude.”
“I just think that someday he could do anything he wanted,” says Nancy Evans, one of Evans teachers during his years at Judge Haynes Elementary School. “The legs aren’t going to make a difference because his attitude is so great.”
While golf and swimming have been long-time diversions for Evan, tennis has not. He picked up the sport for the first time this fall when he went out for the JCHS team.
He earned his first victory, the only junior varsity win of the day for the Patriots, Sept. 15 as he and doubles partner Josh Lykins defeated a duo from Adams Central.
Jay County boys tennis coach Barry Weaver, who is also now coaching Evan on the boys swim team, was impressed by the freshman’s effort on the court. He also said he believes Evan, who was one of the top scorers for the Jay County middle school swim team last season, will earn his first varsity letter in swimming.
“He has some real physical handicaps, but yet, I don’t think he views them that way,” says Weaver. “He doesn’t let it bother him. … His resilience, his attitude, his ability to just get out there and do the best he can has really impressed me.”
When asked about whether he’s excited to get on the golf course for his school in the spring, Evan gives a quick answer.
“Yeah,” he says, “because I think I’ll do well.”
He says he has a goal of advancing out of the sectional tournament. His career-best score would have been good enough for him to reach the regional in each of the three seasons the Patriots have competed at the sectional hosted by Monroe Central at Hickory Hills Golf Club in rural Farmland.
Such an accomplishment wouldn’t shock Charlie Haviza of Portland Golf Club, who has occasionally helped Evan with his game.
“The adjustments he has to make, he works hard at it,” says Haviza. “He’s willing to do whatever it takes … I was very impressed.
“It would not surprise me that before it’s all said and done he’ll be the No. 1 golfer for Jay County. … That’s just the attitude he has. That’s what he wants to work for.”
He’s a regular kid
There is no question that Evan has faced, and continues to face, challenges. Little things in life, such as going up stairs — “I just go up them, slowly,” he says — and finding clothes that fit right are not as easy as they could be.
Still, while his lower limbs look different than most 14-year-olds, he is no different. He doesn’t feel limited.
“I try to do everything,” says Evan. “Even if I do break my leg, I’ll still come to school. I broke my leg in eighth grade, and I still did gym.”
Tiffany says she occasionally hears the typical conversation involving a couple expecting the birth of a child. Someone will ask if they want a boy or a girl. And the couple will respond that they don’t care, as long as the baby is healthy, with 10 fingers and 10 toes.
“And I hear that stuff now and I think, ‘Ah, 10 toes aren’t that great,’” she says.
Evan is doing great without them.
“He’s just a kid, just like everybody else, he’s no different,” says Matt. “You can’t go backwards. You just look forward and hope for the best for him. And nothing has ever slowed him down.”[[In-content Ad]]
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