Adapting to Arkansas
Quadreplegic athlete Sean Kent brings adaptive sports to an underrepresented area.
Great athletes often have great comeback stories. These stories surround individuals who possess supreme determination and unrivaled willpower. For those suffering from spinal cord injuries, like Sean Kent, the chances of returning to a sense of normalcy are slim. After breaking the C6 vertebrae at the base of his neck in a diving accident, Kent’s goal has been to inspire a passion in others that share his disability through community sports. In 2018, he founded the Ozark Adaptive Sports Association. OZASA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing sports equipment and facilities to Northwest Arkansas. “The big goal is to create a facility that’s geared towards disabled athletics, both physical and developmental,” says Kent. “I had architects work with me to design an area where people can come and feel independent and build a community. We want a specialized boat to take people fishing and waterskiing. We want special chairs to do hiking trips. Once you have the space, the possibilities are endless.”
Kent’s diving accident occurred off the coast of Oregon. He went running into the Pacific Ocean and dove into a cresting wave. Right behind it was a sandbar. He said it was like going full speed into a wall. Still conscious and face-down in the water, Kent couldn’t flip himself back up. He was paralyzed. He knew not to panic, because if you panic you’re just going to inhale more water. He passed out and was later resuscitated on the beach. Kent spent two weeks in Portland for surgery and observation. He broke his C6 vertebrae, which limits mobility in the hands, triceps, and torso. Kent had to relearn how the hands and arms function. He had to learn how to eat again. A medical flight took him from Portland to his hometown of Chicago, to the number 1 rehab facility in the country. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. now called the Shirley Ryan ability lab, would be where Kent spent the next six months.
He suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury, meaning it wasn’t severed. He regained sensation back and some movement in his legs, but couldn’t feel pain at all on his left side from the chest down. While in Chicago, he was recommended the movie Murderball by hospital staff. The movie is about wheelchair rugby, a quadraplegic-specific sport. Kent’s limited tricep mobility wouldn’t allow for wheelchair basketball, so after inpatient rehab, he decided to go to a wheelchair rugby practice.
“The best thing I did after my injury was sports,” Kent said. “When I was in rehab and they forced you to go to support groups, they had a therapist that would show up in my room and I’d try to fake like I was sleeping. The support groups were just people complaining and that’s no fun. People are just depressed. They think lifes over, especially depending on your level of injury.” Kent understood the gravity of his situation when he got to Chicago. “They didn’t have enough beds on the spinal cord floor. So they put me on the kids’ floor, and when you’re doing your therapy, you see a five year old that got meningitis and had to have their hands and feet amputated. If she can do this, I can do this,” he said. Other patients would shut down and lock themselves in their hospital rooms, not wanting to do their therapies, but Kent would take as much therapy as he could in the day.
His first roommate had a c2 vertebrae injury from a car accident. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Luckily, he had only dislocated his spine. He had surgery and got function back. “I’ve made a lot of friends who have weird stories,” said Kent. One was a gangbanger, shot in the neck. There’s a girl who was a college gymnast that landed wrong. Another guy was wrestling with friends in his house and got caught in a funny headlock. Another guy was dancing and just collapsed. They put him on a couch and he couldn’t move when he woke up the next morning. One guy was riding his bike and a tree branch fell on him. Another fell in the shower. Diving accidents, car accidents, motorcycle accidents. “When you look back on it, you go ‘wow this is the thing that got me. Out of all the crap I’ve done in my life, diving wrong is what got me’. If I would’ve dove five feet to the left I’d be fine.”
The biggest personal obstacle people deal with is the loss of independence. The loss of function. Things that were once easy aren’t easy anymore. “Velcro is a real pain in the ass for me,” says Kent. “When your world and independence shrinks, it’s a lot to deal with. You wake up and shit doesn’t work. It takes years for people to get their confidence back. You do anything to get your mind off of it. That’s why I did as much physical and occupational therapy as I could.
Kent’s rugby team in Chicago consisted of other quadriplegics, veterans mainly, all with different function levels. “They’d tell me how to handle things and answer my questions,” he said. “Some guys’ hands work and others don’t. It feels better when youre support group is more easygoing and sports makes it more natural. It builds a sense of camaraderie.” On the team, Kent was forced to live independently. Once a month the team’s sponsor would pay for them to go to a tournament for a weekend. They’d cover the hotel and travel. Kent learned how to live without a wheelchair accessible room and how to handle the TSA, airports, and airplanes. He considered it to be therapy in and of itself.
In 2018, Kent’s father retired. After years of planning and research, Kent moved his family down to Northwest Arkansas.“I lucked out,” said Kent. “I know people that were abandoned by their families after their injuries and they are sent to nursing homes. My family was willing to be very supportive and helpful with this.”
To continue playing rugby though, his closest team was in Kansas City, over 200 miles away. To go from practice and back would be a six hour endeavor for two hours of practice. That worked for a year.
“Originally I tried making a wheelchair rugby team here, but after talking to others in the area, I learned that once the coach or captain quit or retired, nobody picked up after,” said Kent. After seeing several adaptive sports institutions fail across the state of Arkansas, Kent started planning the Ozark Adaptive Sports Association. In December of 2019, he acquired his 501c3, which would allow him to start it as a nonprofit. During the initial outbreak of COVID, Kent used time to prepare and get equipment until April of 2021.
He says the two biggest barriers for adaptive sports are equipment and transportation. “Basketball chairs, rugby chairs, and hand cycles cost thousands of dollars each, so it’s not like people who want to play adaptive sports can just hop in and try it out.” Basketball chairs are lighter and sit higher to allow easier shooting and rebounding. Wheelchair rugby is the only full contact wheelchair sport. “We break our necks and then spend thousands of dollars running into each other,” he said.
As an organization trying to appeal to people with injuries, OZASA wants to fit in as many activities as they can. Basketball chairs are universal in paripleigc sports, so they play basketball, tennis, pickleball, softball, and wheelchair lacrosse to name a few. Rugby chairs cover the quadriplegic sports, and hand cycles allow for outdoor racing.
“Northwest Arkansas is a very cycle-friendly area, and we want to take advantage of that,” says Kent. “So for anybody able-bodied or disabled, come and try it out on Wednesday nights. Mostly we offer basketball and rugby because Springdale Parks and Rec has been phenomenal in letting us rent a court once a week. We want to appeal to as many people as we can. The goal is to travel and play other teams competitively, nationally or regionally like in Chicago and Kansas City.”The Ozark Adaptive Sports Association currently meets on Wednesdays from 7pm to 9pm at the Springdale recreation center.
Most of OZASA’s athletes are from the area. “I’ve had contact with people from Oklahoma, Fort Smith, and Bella Vista,” said Kent. “Ideally, our range is a 90 mile radius around Springdale. We have a social media presence, but adaptive sports is an institution where if you’re not looking for it, you usually won’t find out about it. My strategy has been getting into contact with rehab facilities, hospitals, and medical vendors; giving them brochures and information”. Arkansas is unique in that they have the Arkansas Spinal Cord Commission, a branch of the department of human services which keeps track of where disabled people are who need state assistance. Kent uses the commission to help identify new recruits for OZASA.
The Special Olympics has over 19,000 members in Arkansas. According to the CDC and Arkansas Spinal Cord commission, 12-15% of the population is under the age of 65 with a disability. The two major disabilities in arkansas are movement and developmental. The number one causes of spinal cord injuries in Arkansas are car accidents. On average there’s 200-300 spinal cord injuries a year in Arkansas.
“Starting an adaptive sports program in Arkansas has been challenging, but if something like this existed, I wouldn’t have the chance to do it,” says Kent. “It’s the time to do it here. They’re saying the population in NWA is going to double in the next 25 years. The programs like this help people build their confidence back but they have to want to do it. People lose hope after their injury and we’re trying to show them lifes not done. Come out and do these activities, come out and feel independent again. OZASA requires tenacity to just want to do it.” Through sports, it becomes a support group. Under Kent’s leadership, the Ozark Adaptive Sports Association is becoming the premier recreation and support group for the disabled community in Arkansas.