By Andre Brown, staff writer
The greatest athletes have all come from different sizes, different countries, and different genders and that doesn’t change with paralympian Alyssa Emer- ick. She was recently selected to the United States Paralympic team, making it on the team by throwing 6.11 meters in the shot put.
Emerick is a Communications Academy senior at Indian Trail. She has spina bifida, a disorder that occurs when a baby’s spinal column does not close all the way as it develops. Foot surgery only enabled her to do seated track and field events, but she did more than just succeed in those.
“This summer I told myself, come on Aly, you can do it,” said Emerick.
With that motivation and her grandmother driving her to different track and field events across the Midwest, Emerick was able to become one of the lucky 64 athletes to make the team.
Emerick only started a year ago when she decided that she wanted to become a para-athlete, just doing small local track and field events, usually winning or coming close in most of them.
“I noticed I was pretty good, when I was comparing my scores to other peo- ple’s scores, and I was doing really well compared to most of them,” she said.
As she improved, her competition improved as well, until she competed to try to get on the paralympic team. She placed fifth for all girls in the country.
Her recent accomplishment has given her newfound confidence.
“Alyssa has been more upbeat since her recent success. It has done wonders for her,” said Jane Palmen, one of Emerick’s teachers.
Emerick has become a phenomenal athlete over the couple of years, becom- ing an All American is an extraordinary accomplishment that very few are able to complete. She had to make many sacrifices for her to become as good as she is today.
“It was hard for me to do my homework sometimes and trying to stay fo- cused on other things was pretty tough,” she said.
Emerick was able to balance both and improve in school and also on the track and field.
“She sometimes isn’t the most focused, but when she does put everything together, she is a great athlete and student,” Palmen said.
This isn’t the end for Emerick.
She has a lot of other goals to achieve. Graduating high school is one of them. On the track field, she isn’t quite sure what will come next.
“I’m really not sure where this will take me, hopefully somewhere good,” she said.
With Emerick being one of the top American athletes, the sky’s the limit for her abilities. She can achieve many different goals.
Maybe one day, one of Indian Trail’s own can be a gold medal Olympian.