Wheelchair racer Ryan Davis to compete in ATF Paranational Championships

Published 6:00 am Saturday, July 26, 2025

Sixteen-year-old Ryan Davis has always been a dedicated athlete.

As a child, he enjoyed playing T-ball and made the all-star team. At 6 years old, an automobile wreck changed the Waskom native’s life forever, resulting in a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

But instead of letting the accident change his love of sports, he decided to approach his new life in a wheelchair like a champion.

“After my accident, I spent around three months in rehab in Dallas. I learned what my new life would be like. I’ve never really heard of a wheelchair, what it was all about and what you could do in it,” Ryan said. “I actually took my accident very well. I was like, ‘Cool, this is a wheelchair. Let me see what I can do with it.’ ”

While at the hospital, he befriended others who went through similar accidents that left them paralyzed. He started to play wheelchair basketball at the hospital. The kids helped him learn about a basketball chair, and he fell in love instantly.

“I’ve always loved sports, and I wanted to see if I could continue. They showed me wheelchair basketball, and my mom and I talked about trying to get me into some type of adaptive sports because I wanted to continue to play sports. Sports is what I love,” Ryan said.

With the natural energy of a child, Ryan was eager to take the court and play. Before the accident, he wanted to play basketball as well as baseball. When this opportunity to play wheelchair basketball came along, Ryan was already motivated to grab a ball and start learning.

“Being able to play a sport I actually wanted to play pre-accident was incredible. I started playing off just knowing to chase people around. I kept playing basketball and then my coach, Darlene Hunter, offered for me to try wheelchair track, and I thought it’d be a good idea for me to try that sport. I was excited to try a new thing, and I ended up falling in love with it,” he said.

Hunter is a member of the USA women’s wheelchair basketball team and was a paralympic gold medalist at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio. Hunter saw the potential in Ryan and knew track would be the sport for him. Her intuition was correct.

When Ryan was 13, he made the transition to the track. Wheelchair track is not the most well-known sport for disabled athletes. Wheelchair basketball is the dominant sport, but the rise of track and the opportunity to be a part of a growing sport is one of the reasons Ryan loves it. But what made him fall in love even more was the freedom he felt.

“Ever since I got in a racing wheelchair, I found out I could go fast. I fell in love. I loved pushing myself as hard as I could to reach my maximum limits and being able to offer a new type of freedom,” Ryan said. “There’s been a lot of learning curves. It’s a really technical sport, so being able to learn everything from my coaches really shows what life in the disabled community can actually be. Your world hasn’t ended because you’re in a wheelchair. There’s so many opportunities even though our sport is very small.”

Racing has its road blocks when you live in East Texas. The opportunities are limited, and Ryan would have to travel to Dallas to compete with the DFW SWAA, Southwest Wheelchair Athlete Association, in the Texas Parasport.

He was then introduced to Diana Watson, who coached him at Airline High School in Shreveport. Instead of a three-hour drive, he could get to Shreveport in 30 minutes.

Ryan and Watson worked together for two years before he was introduced to his current coach, Marty Morse.

Morse is a Paralympic hall of famer who helped build a wheelchair sports dynasty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Morse helped fund the wheelchair track program for the Fighting Illini, and he coached many paralympians such as Daniel Romanchuk and Susannah Scaroni.

For Team Texas, Ryan is working with Saúl Mendoza, who is a highly decorated paralympian from Mexico. Mendoza has been working with Ryan for around four years and is his coach for the ATF Paranational Championships held in Eugene, Oregon from July 31 to August 4, where he’ll be representing Waskom and East Texas with pride.

Qualifying for the Paranational Championships at 16 years old is an enormous feat. In wheelchair track, athletes don’t normally hit their peak in the sport until their mid-20s.

“The qualifying experience was different because I’ve never had so much pressure to qualify for something so big. It was definitely a roller coaster of emotions with a lot of anger and frustration if I didn’t hit the times that I needed but also great joy from hitting the qualifying times,” Ryan said. “It’s definitely not easy. The qualifying times are the fastest my classification has had in a long time. We’ve had very low qualifying times, which are very hard to hit, especially at 16. It’s definitely an honor to train hard enough and be able to accomplish qualifying and of course getting the chance to compete in Eugene.”

Ryan draws inspiration from three athletes who showed him that being a wheelchair athlete is just as special and meaningful as an able-bodied one.

“The best wheelchair racer in my opinion is Romanchuk. I met him my first year at Junior Nationals in Denver. I went to his clinics and we worked together. Seeing him push and how fast he was left me amazed. Seeing him was when I decided I wanted to actually go into this sport. I’ve competed alongside him, and it’s amazing to see how he dedicates himself to not only racing but giving back to the community,” Ryan said. “Scaroni is really nice and always willing to help myself and other racers. She’s a nutritionist, so she’s helped me with what I should be doing to help my diet as an athlete. Marcel Hug of Switzerland has won too many medals to count. He’s just a force and has been racing for a long time. He’s helped grow the sport and made it available to people to help develop in other countries.”

Ryan hopes that racing in Eugene shows people in Waskom and the area that a disability doesn’t mean you can’t excel in sports or anything else in life.

“It’s a big honor representing East Texas. My big goal as far as the community goes is to bring awareness to our sport because it is so small. The sport is not recognized as it should be and not as big as it can be. I want to show everyone what we can do,” he said. “Being in a wheelchair is not a disability but rather a new ability. We can do anything able-bodied people can just in a different way. Don’t limit us because we can push further.”