Steve Wallace | Truckee, CA
Athlete and Healing Center Coordinator
In 2008, Steve suffered a spinal cord injury while skiing in the Granite Chief area at Squaw Valley. After spending a year in different hospitals around the country, Steve returned to Northern California and was introduced to Roy Tuscany. Shortly after the two met in person Roy asked Steve how High Fives could help him, and Steve expressed to Roy his desire to get back out skiing again. In 2010 High Fives helped Steve achieve his goal, and made him the first grant recipient when they bought him all the equipment and lessons needed to get him skiing again in a safe manner. After seeing and experiencing what High Fives Foundation did for him, Steve was honored to pay it forward by helping Roy and Adam with athletes and events for the next year. When a position became available, Steve was offered the role of CR Johnson Healing Center Coordinator and graciously accepted.
STAFF MEMBER: 2010-Present
Hi Steve-
I am the Competition Manager for the Vail Valley Foundation based in Vail, CO and we host the GoPro Mountain Games here every summer. We’re busy planning for our 2016 event June 9-12, and one goal we’d set for the 2016 event is to make our events more accessible and appealing to adaptive athletes. One thought we’ve been working through is to create an adaptive athlete division in our Ultimate Mountain Challenge (http://www.mountaingames.com/event-detail/Ultimate-Mountain-Challenge.aspx), but I’m wondering if you could shed some light on a few different questions for me: 1) Do you feel your athletes and grantees looking to compete in their respective mountain sports or just get back doing the sports they love? 2) I know bikes and other equipment is quite expensive, so how accessible is the proper equipment if we wanted to help host/make accommodations for adaptive athletes? 3) Any considerations we’re totally missing?
Thanks so much for your time, and happy new year!
Regards,
Erin