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Rachel Doud takes a shot during a wheelchair basketball workout at Lakeshore Foundation. Doud has been honored as a Paralympic High School All-American in the javelin and 1500-meter race, but she really admits basketball is her first love. Photo by Karim Shamsi-Basha
The first thing you notice when you talk with Rachel Doud is that she’s a born athlete. She’s just got that mindset, that attitude, that competitive spirit some are born with. The last thing you notice is that she was born with a physical disability.
The 15-year-old Homewood High sophomore, who trains at the Lakeshore Foundation, was named to the 2014 U.S. Paralympics Track and Field High School All-America team. She qualified by finishing third in the javelin and fourth in the 1500 meters.
Rachel was born with spina bifida, and it confines her to a wheelchair when she’s competing. It doesn’t confine her competitive drive, though. And it doesn’t define her.
“Just because I have a disability doesn’t mean I have a ‘block.’ It’s just part of my life,” she said. “And we go through the same stuff as able-bodied athletes. It’s as if someone were to do normal track or normal field, it’s the same thing. They get injuries, so do we, we have crashes. The chair really isn’t a block.”
Rachel’s main disability is in her feet. “I can move everything except my feet, flexing them and stuff.” She can walk with a walker and use crutches. She uses the wheelchair more — in part because she’s eager to get where she’s going and that’s the fastest means. Her mother, Nikki, said she’s always been very active regardless and would be an athlete whether she was in the wheelchair or not.
Rachel and her family moved to Alabama from Enid, Okla., just last year, but she was already well aware of Lakeshore and what it offered. The Douds have family in Homewood and had visited often. Rachel had participated in Lakeshore camps and events during summers.
Her father, Phil, was retiring from the Air Force Reserve and was free to move the family wherever they wanted to go. So when the time came to move, it was a no-brainer. They picked Homewood to be near family and Lakeshore and purchased a home just off Lakeshore Drive to have quick and easy access to the facility.
Rachel works out there two days a week for about two hours and some on weekends. She’s been impressed by the facilities and coaching by Jerry Allred and Mary Allison Cook.
“I’ve never seen anything like Lakeshore anywhere in Oklahoma, at all. It’s awesome. It’s like a second home,” she said.
Back in Oklahoma, wheelchair basketball was her thing.
In fact, this was her first real foray into track and field except for archery, which she’d done at camps and had become a favorite sport.
“This is the first track and field she’s ever done,” her father said. “She wasn’t a big fan of the concept, but once she started improving she got really excited about the progress.”
Rachel said she initially felt a bit out of her comfort zone. “I was kind of thrown off by it at first and didn’t want to do it because I was thinking, ‘Where’s my team, where’s my friends, I need help with this.’ But after I got used to it, I liked the individuality.”
Although she’s excited about being an All-American in track and field, she’s not positive she’d like to compete in the 2016 Paralympic Games.
Let’s rephrase that: She’d much rather be on the Paralympic wheelchair basketball team.
“I’d like to go for basketball. I think of track for me as just kind of cross-training. Basically, basketball is my first love.”
She hasn’t lived here long, but Rachel has already picked her team. Roll Tide. She’s very aware that the University of Alabama has had several national championships in women’s wheelchair basketball. She said that’s where she wants to go.
“I don’t really get to see wheelchair basketball. It’s not on TV. I want to play for them and see how they do it. Why can’t I see them? Oh, that’s right, because they don’t televise wheelchair sports,” she said sarcastically, her competitive nature coming through. “It’s a university team, right? And they televise the Olympics, but not the Paralympics. I guess no one needs to be inspired by seeing disabled athletes doing things able-bodied athletes could never do,” she said with a laugh.