WOODBINE, Iowa — The Paralympics are coming up in just two weeks and it looks like Iowa is going to have some representation on the courts.
Local 5 met a wheelchair basketball athlete who’s getting ready to leave for Paris. He tells us it still doesn't feel real. Jeromie Meyer spent most of his childhood in the small farm town of Woodbine, Iowa.
“If you’re cruising along highway 30 and you’re creeping up on it, you might blink and then miss it," he said.
He’s been playing wheelchair basketball since he was 10.
“I was injured when I was nine years old riding my bicycle by a drunk driver and that’s what led me to be a full-time wheelchair user," Meyer said.
He was introduced to the sport through the recreational therapy program at a rehabilitation hospital in Nebraska. Wheelchair basketball not only gave him an outlet, but built his confidence during a time in his life that could’ve led him to becoming insecure.
“I used wheelchair basketball as a way to like just not even have to think about all of that type of stuff like how am I going to do this? People are going to think of me differently…,” Meyer remembered.
Since then, it’s been years of blood, sweat, and tears. Meyer made the national team in 2022 but the first time he tried out was back when he was 19 or 20.
“I don’t think it was a failure by any means. Being able to go to that camp and get your butt kicked for a few days lets you know and shows you firsthand the level of basketball that you have to play," Meyer said.
Finally making it to the Paralympics was a surreal moment. He says that if you told his younger self when he first started that he was going to the Paralympics, he probably would've laughed and made a witty remark. Meyer says his family has to remind him that it's really happening.
The advice he gives to people who are newly injured or have a physical disability is to pick your battles.
"Whether it be some guy at the grocery store telling you that you're an inspiration and they admire you for just opening a door on your own or grabbing something off a shelf or if it's you not being able to really accept your disability, I think that you live a very miserable life if every single time something like that happens you make a huge fuss about it," he said.
Meyer tells Local 5 that, while of course getting gold is the ultimate dream, his personal goal is to do his best and to be a good teammate. The camaraderie of the sport after all is his favorite part of wheelchair basketball.