Utah teen excels at wheelchair tennis

From The Salt Lake Tribune in Utah:

What's so remarkable about Ryan Nelson (pictured) playing tennis is how unremarkable he looks rolling, swinging the racket and smacking the ball. He fluidly propels his wheelchair toward his target, gracefully arcing the ball over the net or, like any player, sometimes slicing it the wrong direction.

"My bad," the 15-year-old told his Brighton High School teammate during a recent tennis team practice.

You could say he's a pretty normal teenage boy -- more interested in sports than school.

Born with spina bifida, a birth defect his parents had never heard of when Ryan was diagnosed in his mother's womb, he had a hole in the lower part of his spine that doctors had to immediately close. That meant, from the beginning, Ryan had limited ability to use his legs.

As he grew up in Holladay, watching an older brother play sports, the disabled boy longed to join in.

"I remember him saying to me, 'I just want a coach and a jersey,' " his dad, Wayne Nelson, recalls.

So, in a tiny wheelchair, Ryan launched his sports career on the basketball court. About 4 years old at the time, "the mosquito," as he was known, was aggressive, kind of "like a pest," his dad said.

All of the other young players, who were also in wheelchairs, were many years older.

"He was always zipping around trying to steal the ball," recalled Dean Oba, who coached Ryan in basketball and in tennis today. "He was especially trying to steal it from me."

Now Ryan gives back by helping Oba -- who also uses a wheelchair as a result of spina bifida -- coach younger kids in basketball at the Copperview Recreation Center in Midvale.

"You can tell them, 'He started out when he was even smaller than you are,' " Oba said. "It gives them an idea of what they can accomplish."

From basketball, Ryan went on to try many other sports, including baseball with non-disabled kids -- Ryan pitched from his knees. Then there was a stint in tackle football: playing defense on his knees, he could scoot sideways or back and forth and tackle anyone who came up the middle.

Like any mom, Libbi Nelson worried what the other kids would think or say to her disabled son and whether he'd feel at ease. She remembers being nervous on his first day of junior high. But Ryan always bounces back from whatever frustrations he encounters.

"He's just not an unhappy person," his mother said. "Even though he could be."

Sports have become a door to the world for Ryan, whose family now lives in Sandy. Last year, he traveled to England with the United States Tennis Association for the Junior World Team Cup to play against other wheelchair athletes. This spring he travels to Turkey to play in another Junior World Team Cup competition.

The Utah Tennis Association recently awarded Ryan the Harry James "Will to Win" award for 2010.

"I think his temperament makes him well suited for tennis," Oba said, noting Ryan is good at game analysis.

Tennis has introduced the teen to a community of wheelchair-bound athletes and allowed him to meet people from all over the world.

"It's opened up a lot of opportunities for me," he said.

In the future he hopes to become a Paralympian in tennis and basketball.

"Just so that I'm able to say that I'm one of the best in the world at what I do," he said. "It's a great accomplishment."