Moving the Ball Forward: Athlete Voices with Chuck Aoki

"I started competing after I saw the movie Murder Ball, and I thought, "Wow, that looks like a lot of fun to get knocked around and beat up." So I showed up to a practice, and got knocked around and beat up for two hours straight, and I fell in love with it instantly. And I've been playing wheelchair rugby ever since."

"I think during my first Paralympic games, I didn't know what to expect, honestly. Because it was this thing I'd always dreamed of doing, and suddenly I was there and it was like, "I don't know what's going to happen."

"There's people everywhere. There's thousands of fans to watch. I'm getting deluged by fans on the street. It was incredible. So I didn't know what to expect, but I think that made it just so special being my very first time. But it was really, really amazing."

"I think we've seen a lot of growth, really across the entire world, including the United States, in the Paralympic understanding. It's like, when I first started the sport, people would say, "The Paralympics, what is that?" Most people had not even heard of its concept."

"I'll meet people all the time and they'll ask, am I Olympic athlete or Paralympic athlete. "Oh, Paralympic. Oh, that's so cool." And they talk about it. They've heard of the Paralympics, they've heard of some Paralympic athlete."

"We've really seen so much understanding grow here in the United States, and now we have to take it from people having just heard of it, to being fans of it. But people have heard of it now, and that's a huge first step we have to take."

"I hope that people can learn about para-sports, between now and Paris, that every athlete on the court, or on the track or, in a pool, is an elite athlete. It might look different than you're used to seeing. Not everybody's going to look like LeBron or Usain Bolt, or something like that. But every athlete there is an elite athlete at what they do."

"It just looks different. Because they function different, their body's different. That doesn't make them any less elite. It doesn't mean they don't work any harder, but it just looks a little different. So I hope people can understand that and appreciate every single athlete there for how hard they work and train, to be the absolute best in the world."

"I think the beauty of the modern age is, the internet is everywhere. You can Google. You hear about wheelchair, rugby, sitting volleyball, para swimming. There's an access point for everywhere, and there's leagues all across the United States. You just have to Google it and check it out."

"I think though, quickly the Paralympics are becoming an easy access point. It's all over NBC and Peacock. You can see it on all the media platforms. It's never been easier to watch live sports. And so I think folks just have to find ways to tune in because it's so exciting and they're going to absolutely love it."

"My hope for the future Paralympians is that they will all grow up in a world where there is no sort of question if Paralympics is equal to Olympics. I think that, my dream is that it's always viewed as the same. Every Paralympic athlete is as much a household name as every Olympic athlete. And I think that dream is coming."

"Paris is going to be an amazing game. It's going to launch people in the journey. But the LA 28 games coming back to the United States are going to just transform the Paralympic movement in an incredible way."

"Paris is going to be an amazing Games. It's going to launch people in the journey. But the LA 28 Games coming back to the United States are going to just transform the Paralympic movement in an incredible way."

"I think that people are going to know about it. I think Paralympians, the best part is that the next generation of Paralympic athletes, who we don't even know yet, are going to have hundreds of Paralympic athletes they can look up to. Because when I was a kid, there were no Paralympians I knew. I didn't see them on TV. I didn't see them in magazines. I didn't read about them in books."

"Now we've got so much more media around Paralympic athletes, whether it's writing their own books, TV, movies, they're everywhere. And so they're going to be able to look up and say, "That's who I want to be. Like I see somebody who looks exactly like me and I want to be like them." And it's going to be an incredible time."

"I think what it means to me to be a Paralympian, why it's so important, the distinction is, what makes the Paralympics so unique, is every single athlete there has gone through something in their life that transformed their life. They never expected to have a spinal cord injury. Grow up with cerebral palsy. Suffer a stroke. That's something no one anticipated happening, and it changed their lives."

"It could have led them to be upset, be frustrated, be mad, and all those things are valid. But what they did is they took that frustration, they took that and they channeled it into achieving something great and becoming the best at what they do. And I think that's why the title of Paralympian is so important to me and why it's such an incredible community to be a part of."

"Every single time I'm at a Paralympics or an event, I look around, you see that everyone in that room with you has gone through a similar challenge as you. They've gone through a struggle, they've gone through a really dark time. Where they were frustrated. They didn't know it was going to happen. They had no control over the body. But they took back that control."

"They took their power back and they said, "No, I'm not going to let this define me. I'm just going to let this be an opportunity to be great at something." And that's why the title of Paralympian is so, so important to me."