My name is Bryan Barten.
I'm the head coach of wheelchair tennis at the University of Arizona.
Okay work on your [inaudible] straight from the beginning, alright.
It was a transition job for me.
I was working at the University and a job opened up as a coach.
I was playing tennis at the time and I had made several USA teams and it was a natural fit
for me so that's how I moved into the coaching role with the program.
The adaptive athletics department here at the U of A has six teams.
We're the largest, most comprehensive adaptive athletics program
in the country related to a university.
We have athletes from all over the country and all over the world that come here to train.
We provide athletic opportunities and academic opportunities for those athletes.
These athletes are competitive.
They train seriously.
You know, they're hardcore.
This isn't a hobby, you know, it's not recreation for people like Bryan.
This is his job, right, to go out and represent the US at the Paralympics and all over the world
and we're proud to have him here on staff and working with our student athletes.
But yeah. This is hardcore, right.
So we expect a lot of our athletes and they bring it.
I began playing wheelchair tennis in 1998 when I came to the University of Arizona.
So I've traveled the world many times.
It's been a great sport for me.
I've been an athlete my whole life.
I played sports in high school.
Basketball, track, golf.
After high school I maintained an active lifestyle.
I was involved in a car accident in 1995.
I was a backseat passenger in a vehicle.
We crashed into a light pole. It was sideways and in the impact I broke my neck.
It was pretty much the only injury I had but it left me paralyzed from the chest down.
It also affected the use of my hands and so after my accident, I was 21 years old
when it happened, and I spent the first year after my accident really not knowing what to do.
I kind of lost all of my activities and I was pretty bored for that first year
and luckily I found a group of people that were playing wheel chair tennis
at Michigan State University and they invited me out to come try it and the first time I was
on court, my goal was just to hit a ball over the net.
You know, to make one ball over the net.
I was able to do that and just fell in love with the sport.
In 2012 I made my first Paralympics.
I had the honor to represent our country in London.
I got a win at that games.
It was awesome.
This shirt is one of the shirts that I got from the Paralympics in London so we have, you know,
our uniforms and award ceremony outfits and this is one of the shirts
that I got and I kind of like this one.
It sort of has the super hero logo of USA on it but I'm proud to wear this
because it means something to me and I'm proud of my country and it's, you know,
it's a real honor to put something like this on and know what it means.
I'm very excited about my opportunity to go to Brazil and compete in my second Paralympics.
It's a tough road so every day is training and getting ready for those events.
I need to get my ranking up to the top 12 in the world and I'm at 14 right now
so it's definitely doable but I still have some work to do to get there.
I need a little luck and draws and I need to play well at the tournaments that I'm going to.
There you go.
I think that it's awesome that we have a program here and that we're getting to play
and it's been a lot to me for my college career and I think it's awesome
that the Paralympics are this like big looming goal and that they exist and that I'm excited
to watch it and just kind of be inspired through that.
I'm so impressed cause it's one thing to have the strokes, which I mean able bodied
or wheelchair players have that, but there's different movement patterns
in wheelchair tennis that's way different than able bodied and plus a lot
of these players were paralyzed so they didn't grow up in the chair so they had
to relearn cause the patterns are different.
Wheelchair tennis became my identity.
I identify myself as an athlete, I'm also a coach
but I train everyday, you know, for my sport.
I think about it all the time.
I think Brian, he's just an inspiration.
He's been self motivating.
He's really pushed me to pursue my tennis and my degree and he's just been great.
The accident that I was involved in in 1995, it left me as a quadriplegic
and luckily my two friends that were in the front seat,
I'm thankful that neither of them were hurt.
You know, it was an accident and accidents happen
and so I guess it's how you deal with them that really matters.