November 21, 2018 at 4:12 p.m.
Pryor is continuing career in athletics beyond expectations
Pryor is continuing career in athletics beyond expectations
Nick Pryor didn’t envision a career in athletics.
He certainly didn’t expect to still be competing as he nears his 30s.
When a walk-off grand slam by Homestead’s Ryan Wright ended Pryor’s senior baseball season with Jay County High School in the 2008 sectional championship game, he assumed his career was over.
Yes, he had played for the Patriots’ first, and to this point only, sectional championship football team the previous fall.
Yes, he was a member of the record-setting 2008 baseball team that blasted 65 home runs.
But he wasn’t the star on either of those squads.
He didn’t have the college pedigree of some of his teammates.
“High school sports, when you’re done, you think you’re done forever,” he said.
He wasn’t.
••••••••••
July 12, 1994, was a warm summer day in Dunkirk. Four-year-old Nick Pryor and his brother Vince, 6, were invited by a neighborhood friend to his house to play.
Their mom said “no.”
Nick and Vince went anyway, their little sister Kaycee tagging along.
The friend had found some shells for a 12-gauge shotgun he had received from his grandfather.
As the friend was attempting to load the shells, boom.
The explosion struck all three Pryor children.
Kaycee was hit in the head and chest. She died that day at the age of 3.
Vince, who was furthest away from the blast, suffered minor pellet wounds.
Nick, a week shy of his fifth birthday, was hit in the legs. He was flown first to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and then transferred to Riley Children’s Hospital. He was in critical condition.
His right leg was severely damaged. It was fractured, and he lost a segment of muscle, nerves and arteries. Doctors thought they could save the leg by transferring muscle from Nick’s shoulder. But, after several surgeries, the decision was made to amputate.
••••••••••
When he was growing up in Dunkirk, Nick didn’t know Turnstone, one of the four gyms in the country that is universally accessible, specifically designed for those with disabilities, was located just an hour’s drive away in Fort Wayne. More than two decades later, he works at one of the other three — Ability360 in Phoenix.
Nick is a program coordinator for the organization, which also operates an assisted living center. He runs its wheelchair adult and youth basketball programs and is the head coach for its Phoenix Wheelchair Suns team.
He is also in charge of the organization’s Healthy Teens Healthy Communities program that offers teens with disabilities access to personal trainers, exercise physiologists, nutritionists, coaches, personalized health, wellness and fitness programs and peer support and interaction.
Nick is deeply involved with youth at the facility, running summer camps and directing tournaments. For them, he’s a role model.
“He’s had a great history with sports,” said Gus LaZear, vice president and general manager of the Ability360 sports and fitness center. “As an organization that promotes adaptive athletics, Nick never really played adaptive athletics as he was growing up. He played ball, just like any other kid.
"And that’s the way it should be.
“He’s a good example, especially to some of the youth that are coming into our program because he grew up with a disability. And although everybody’s different here, he really kind of embodies, ‘Hey, it doesn’t have to stop you.’”
Nick is thrilled to be able to share his experiences with the next generation of disabled athletes.
Sports have been “my whole life,” he said, adding that he sees them as a microcosm of society. They taught him lessons in camaraderie, social skills, responsibility, respect and work ethic. They showed him how to handle adversity.
And they helped him fit in, despite being different.
“Sports for me, it was my way of showing everybody else that I was just like them,” said Nick. “I never did feel different or out of place. And nobody treated me any differently. That’s not the case for a lot of people.”
••••••••••
Shortly after he started classes at Indiana University, a sophomore friend encouraged Nick to try out for the club baseball team. He played in that program throughout his college career and stayed active elsewhere as well. (That included the basketball court, where he was able to dunk for the first time after growing three inches during his freshman year.)
As his graduation approached, he still felt the pull to stay involved in athletics. A professor told him about the Paralympics.
(Nick points out that the Paralympics are often misunderstood. The “para-“ portion of the word originally referred to “paraplegic,” but that changed as other groups were included in the event. Now “para-” refers to “parallel,” or games that run in concert with the Olympics.)
So, when he moved to Phoenix, where his mom, stepfather, grandmother and younger siblings lived, he took up track and field, competing in the Desert Challenge Games, a Paralympic qualifier.
“That was my introduction into adaptive sports,” Nick said. “It was just incredible to be there and see all the different people …
“It was just so much support, just everybody pulling for each other and everybody wanting the best for each other. That was the moment for me that I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.”
••••••••••
He decided to build on the bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at IU and enrolled at Arizona State University — he earned a master’s degree in parks and recreation management — where he became a teacher’s assistant for a volunteer management class. In that role, he took a tour of Ability360 and learned there was a group of amputees that gathered to play basketball on Wednesday evenings. He started to attend.
After a while, the group wanted to add a more competitive aspect and decided to start the Cactus Classic, the only stand-up amputee basketball tournament of its kind in the country.
Nick had planned to play in that inaugural tournament, but he was working at a summer camp in California and was not allowed the time off.
To LaZear, that didn’t seem right, so he offered Nick a job as a lifeguard.
“That’s a great way for us to bring people in because we’re always looking for (lifeguards),” said LaZear. “But I knew down the road that he would be working inside the building and running other programs.”
Thanks to the new job, Nick was able to attend that first Cactus Classic. It was there that he connected with Amp1, a national amputee basketball team and non-profit organization. The group invited him to travel to Los Angeles to play in the Nike 3-on-3 tournament, and he jumped at the chance.
As a member of Amp1, he continues to play in 3-on-3 tournaments but is also involved with the team’s various other initiatives. Together, the amputee players visit schools, give motivational speeches and participate in disability awareness games. Each year they’re involved with a clinic for amputees at the University of California, San Francisco, in conjunction with the Golden State Warriors Camps.
“Our mission is to motivate, educate and inspire,” Nick said.
He has been to Nike’s world headquarters in Oregon and played a game at the University of Kentucky’s Rupp Arena at halftime of a preseason contest between the Washington Wizards and Sacramento Kings.
“It’s just something that I was super lucky to find and get involved with because there’s so many people that fall through the cracks,” he said.
••••••••••
Nick’s mission now is to make sure others don’t miss opportunities, especially children in rural areas like where he grew up.
Part of that task is accomplished through his work with the teams and programs at Ability360. Part is also accomplished through the outreach of Amp1.
Both organizations use social media to help spread their message.
But it’s not just reaching out to the public in general or amputees specifically that will do the job, he said. Nick and his colleagues also communicate with the doctors who treat amputees and the occupational therapists, physical therapists, coaches and counselors who are involved in their lives on a daily basis.
“My thing is just to keep spreading awareness that adaptive sports exist,” he said, noting that some college programs are offering scholarships to adaptive athletes. “A lot of people don’t know that those opportunities exist.
“For a kid like me, from Dunkirk, I didn’t know any of that. I know there’s kids from across the country with the same problem.
“Our goal is to just be a resource to people and let them know that this is happening.”
Nick is also still hoping to make a Paralympic team.
His 2018 season was cut short because of an elbow injury. Still, he’s ranked second in the country for javelin in F44, the category for athletes with lower-limb “impairments” like his.
He plans to start training again in January with a focus on representing the United States in the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.
There are other goals out there as well.
Nick hopes to see basketball for stand-up amputees added to the Paralympics, as only wheelchair basketball is currently available. And he wants to continue to grow the wheelchair program he’s been leading for the last three years at Ability360.
He’s excited about what lies ahead:
“I really think this is just the beginning for me and what we can do.”
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