Michael's Paralympic Dream Shot

My name is Michael Seo and I was born with a form of cancer called Neuroblastoma. The cancer took shape in my adrenal gland and grew onto my spine causing me to become paralyzed at birth. Being in a wheelchair is all I have known growing up. As a kid my other 7 brothers didn't treat me any differently, and my parents ensured I was seen as equal and had plenty of opportunities. But school was a little different. Going to a public school as the only kid in a wheelchair felt isolating at times because most kids didn't know how to make sense of disabilities. My peers were always questioning how I got in a wheelchair and asking way too many personal questions like 'How do you use the bathroom?". I found it hard to make genuine connections because I felt that my wheelchair made me too different to deserve any. Life outside of my home began to feel more and more isolating.

 

Everything changed when my mom signed me up for a wheelchair sports camp. For the first time, I saw plenty of kids who were just like me: normal with a wheelchair. I had never seen anything like it and felt right at home once I began participating at camp. I had so much fun there that we connected with a wheelchair basketball coach and I began playing on a local team in third grade through high school. Money was always a constant issue for traveling so we always had to fundraise. I traveled and played at tournaments all around the country through the generosity of other people. I was invited to attend the national championship hosted by the NWBA (National Wheelchair Basketball Association), where I was able to ball out and landed a scholarship with the University of Arizona. Now I'm starting guard for the Men's Wheelchair Basketball team at UA , where I major in Education.

 

My time at UA has been a roller coaster, with college life and sports disrupted due to COVID-19. I worked my way up to the starting guard my sophomore year when we ranked 6th out of 12 teams going into the national championship. Unfortunately, the day before we flew out, our tournament was canceled because of the pandemic. I didn't know it at the time, but during the games in my sophomore year I was being watched by scouts from the Paralympic committee for the United States. My junior year season at UA was also canceled due to the pandemic.

 

In 2021 I was invited to participate at an Emerging Elite training camp where we spent a week training and preparing the Women's National wheelchair basketball team. I got to play on a squad that was picked from colleges from all over the nation, where I was the only one representing UA. I played my heart out at the Emerging Elite camp and earned an invite to the U23 (Under 23) Men's selection camp for team USA. The U23 camp will be hosted in Birmingham, Alabama in late October. The selection camp requires athletes to cover our own travel expenses, lodging, food, transportation, and other necessities for the camp, and the University of Arizona isn't allowed to pay for those expenses due to NCAA codes.

 

I am asking for your generosity to help me continue to show that opportunity in life is limitless no matter your circumstance. I would be eternally grateful if my expenses were able to be covered in order for me to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I have worked so hard for. If you could please donate to this cause it would mean the world to me. Thank you for taking the time to read my story now I hope you'll invest in the dream that I hope to achieve.