Courtney Ryan's athletic journey is a rare and remarkable one.
She has competed at the highest levels in two very different settings and sports — first as a Division II All-American soccer player at Metropolitan State University of Denver and later in front of March Madness crowds as a standout for Team USA's wheelchair basketball squad. In Paris, Ryan will compete in her second Paralympics as Team USA looks to build off winning a bronze medal at the Tokyo Paralympics.
Ryan's path from the soccer field to the Paralympic court underscores a resilience and passion that extends far beyond personal achievement, fueling her drive to expand resources for adaptive sports and advocate for the disabled community.
Her life took an unexpected turn during her junior year at MSU Denver. As a star defender for the Roadrunners, an injury during a game in 2010 altered her course forever. A burst blood clot caused nerves to detach from her spinal cord, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. But what might have ended her athletic career instead became the start of a new one. Drawn to wheelchair basketball, Ryan quickly found her way in a sport that would become her new passion and platform.
"I remember going into the gym for the first time and seeing wheelchair basketball, and instantly I was hooked. I loved the aggressiveness. I loved the passion coming from the players," Ryan said. "I knew instantly. 'This is me. Sign me up.'"
Ryan's first wheelchair basketball tournament is stamped with a memory athletes dream of: making a game-winning shot.
"There's three seconds left. We were down by 1 point, and one of my teammates threw the ball up, missed the shot," she recalled. "It landed in my lap. I put it up, had the game-winning bucket my first game ever."
Soon after, Ryan got an offer to attend the University of Arizona, which offers the largest collegiate-based adaptative athletics program in the country, to compete on its wheelchair basketball team. This, in many ways, brought her athletics career full circle in terms of the opportunities it presented.
"I was back at that collegiate student-athlete mindset and that identity again," Ryan, now an assistant coach for Arizona's wheelchair basketball team, said. "From there, it's just opened so many doors. Now I get the privilege of not only getting a degree at the University of Arizona, but also giving back to the younger generation of athletes that inevitably will be up on this stage one day, as well."
Ryan still holds strong affection and appreciation for her time at MSU Denver, which laid the foundation in many ways for her second athletics career.
"Despite how it ended, it gave me the work ethic that I needed to be able to continue to compete at an elite level," Ryan said. "It provided me an incredible idea of how important family is when it comes to team sports. And it's given me the confidence that I have today to excel at an elite level. Without those experiences, without the coaching that I had and without that family bond that I created, I don't think that would have converted into where I'm at.
"So, despite the ending of that story, I'm incredibly grateful for that opportunity, and I'm still a Roadrunner."
Her accomplishments in soccer and later in wheelchair basketball led to her induction into the MSU Denver Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022, an honor she never expected.
"To have my name on that wall for life now is an emotional thing," she said.
Ryan's quick and successful transition to wheelchair basketball not only propelled her to the highest levels of the sport, but it also ignited a passion for advocacy and the need for greater resources and recognition for adaptive athletes.
One of the most significant disparities Ryan observed between able-bodied and adaptive athletics is the financial support available to athletes. At MSU Denver, she received a scholarship as a soccer player, but in the world of adaptive sports, such opportunities are scarce.
"Unfortunately, with adaptive athletics, we cannot provide (as many) full scholarships because we just don't have the funding to be able to do so," Ryan said.
Ryan's experiences have driven her to advocate for change. She co-founded the Team PossAbilities Shield Maidens, a women's wheelchair basketball team in Los Angeles that she helps write grants for to provide more women in the area the opportunity to compete in the sport. She now also works with the Direct Advocacy and Resource Center in Tucson, Arizona, where she helps advocate for and provide resources toward home modifications for people with disabilities to allow them to age longer in their houses.
"To make just those little impacts in these people's lives is an incredible thing, and it provides me so much gratitude," Ryan said. "The gratitude that they give to us is something that money can't buy."
Despite the challenges, Ryan remains hopeful about the future of adaptive athletics. She acknowledges the progress made in recent years, particularly the increased visibility and recognition of wheelchair basketball. This personally included opportunities to compete twice during the halftime of NCAA women's basketball championship games as part of Team USA. She played during halftime exhibitions at the 2023 joint NCAA women's basketball championship in Dallas and during this year's Division I championship in Cleveland.
Both opportunities stemmed from thePara-College Inclusion Project, which was launched in 2021 by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the NCAA office of inclusion to engage schools offering adaptive sport to collectively increase Paralympic sport understanding, awareness and connection across the collegiate landscape.
"To see us develop and get more recognition and more partnerships with the NCAA is an incredible thing to experience and to witness," Ryan said. "To experience that energy, to experience that full house is exactly what we need. We need more visibility. If we get more visibility, that's going to provide more resources for these upcoming athletes."
Ryan also emphasized the value of notable women uplifting adaptive athletics, specifically praising Arizona women's basketball head coach Adia Barnes.
"She is a huge supporter and a huge part of the movement for adaptive athletics," Ryan said of Barnes. "You need women like that to continue to grow. You need to be able to utilize those platforms as well to be able to get to where we want to get."
Ryan hopes she can also have a positive impact through her coaching role to push adaptive athletics forward.
"I'm so honored to be able to give back to such an incredible sport that has provided me so much," she said.
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