OMAHA (KMTV) — UNO alum and Woodbine, Iowa native Jeromie Meyer has overcome plenty of obstacles in his life. He found an outlet in wheelchair basketball. Now he’s getting ready to represent the United States on the world’s biggest stage.
- At nine years old, Jeromie was paralyzed when a drunk driver hit him while he was riding his bike. He’s been a wheelchair user ever since.
- Not long after, he was introduced to wheelchair basketball.
- He’s made the U.S. national team a few times in the last couple of years, but this is his first time on the Paralympic team.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“When I was nine years old, I was riding my bicycle and was struck by a drunk driver, which led me to being paralyzed and a full time wheelchair user,” Jeromie Meyer said.
An athlete before the incident, Meyer found wheelchair basketball through his rehab hospital.
He’s 27 now, and after making three national teams in the past couple of years, Meyer made his first Paralympic team in March and will travel to Paris this summer.
“You hear your name called, a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders,” he said.
It was a grind though. After trying out for the national team for five years, he got his first shot in 2022.
“You have to be ok with not necessarily accepting failure but understanding it’s the process not the outcome,” Meyer said. “There are points in time where it’s like ‘man this sucks. This is a tough thing to get over.’ So what could be terrible and worse isn’t always as bad as it seems.”
Kind of like what he’s been through off the court.
“A lot of people think the process of life is very linear, right?” he said. “You’re going from one checkpoint to the next checkpoint and then you’re gonna get your final destination. Well a lot of times, it’s not a perfect world or a perfect life, so it doesn’t ever happen that way.”
Even so, Meyer works to find the joy in everything, especially basketball.
“My biggest thing about all of this is having fun,” he said.”I like to do what I’m doing right now because at the end of the day I enjoy it, I think it’s fun, I don’t go out there and feel like it’s a job."
Meyer lives in Wisconsin now, but with all his traveling, he always remembers his roots.
“When I go places, I say I’m an Iowa guy,” he said. “I had a coach when I was younger who said once you’re an athlete or you get to a certain stage of sports, you’re no longer just representing yourself. So I take great pride in getting to represent Iowa on the world stage.”
The Paralympics start on Aug. 28 and run through Sept. 8.
