Off Duty, Sports, Hunting, Fishing - Army Times

Wheelchair rugby gives vet new lease on life

Robert Schuler has turned the agony of defeat into the thrill of victory.

It was a sunny day in May when the worst happened. A boogie board accident on a beach in Hawaii destroyed the fifth vertebra down from the base of his neck.

The injury left Schuler, 27, a quadriplegic. The Army cook — a veteran of two tours in Iraq — has no use of his hands and triceps, but he can move his wrists a little. He uses a wheelchair.

So he took up rugby, or, as the players call it, “murderball.”

Eleven months after he got out of the hospital, Schuler’s team took the silver medal in the 2009 National Veterans Wheelchair Games. Quad rugby, for quadriplegics only, was one of 17 events at the games, held July 13-18 in Spokane, Wash.

“Truthfully, I’ve had my ups and downs since the injury,” Schuler said. “The only thing that’s been keeping me going is quad rugby.”

The first veterans wheelchair games were in Richmond, Va., in 1981 when 74 veterans gathered from 14 states to compete.

Sponsored by Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Veterans Affairs Department, the games are now billed as the largest annual wheelchair sports competition in the world. This year, more than 500 veterans participated. An estimated crowd of 9,000 spectators cheered the athletes on as the games began.

VA Secretary and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki told reporters as the games kicked off, “For a very short period of time, I lived in an amputee ward. I have great appreciation for what they’ve done to get to this point, the amount of determination and work.”

The events included: air guns, archery, basketball, bowling, field events, handcycling, a motorized wheelchair rally, nine-ball pool, power soccer, slalom, softball, swimming, table tennis, track, trapshooting and weightlifting.

Adding to his quad rugby medal, Schuler also grabbed the gold in the slalom obstacle course.

But it’s quad rugby that’s captured his attention. A four-on-four event, the game brings together the sprints, passing and dribbling of basketball, the head-on bashing and end-zone scoring of football and the bottle-ups and crash-and-dash of bumper cars.

“I was so depressed when I got out of the hospital,” Schuler said. But after a player from the local team in his hometown of Colorado Springs, Colo., encouraged him to play, he knew he’d found a new lease on life.

“It’s become my full-time focus,” he said. “My goal is to make the national team for the next Paralympics.”

The sport has also help provide some perspective.

“Before I got hurt, I was working 12- to 15-hour shifts, 13 days on, one off. I didn’t get to see my family much,” he says. “If I hadn’t been injured, I’d be back in Iraq right now for another 15-month tour. So in a lot of ways, this feels like a blessing and a curse at the same time.”