Megan Blunk

Megan is a Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball. When she was 18, she suffered from a motorcycle accident that paralyzed her from the waist down. 3 years after the accident, she earned a scholarship to play wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Since then, she has competed for Team USA in women’s wheelchair basketball, as well as paracanoe.

Guest: Megan Blunk

Interviewer: Collette Hemmings

Megan: I have just gone through a huge transition in my life. I was on the 2020 Paralympic team heading towards Tokyo, and then quarantine hit, and that got put off. I had to make the decision in October to just let it go and start the next chapter of my life. It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to let it go, but I felt I really needed to focus on my mental health. I felt like this was the perfect time to be able to do that and give it my all. It was not an easy decision to let the team go. I don’t know what is next, but I know that my journey isn’t done. Coaching is a passion of mine. I also have other sports I would like to try, like electric mountain biking and pickle ball.

Collette: Tell me more about pickle ball, I’ve never heard of that.

Megan: It’s a recreational sport that is just played for fun. I have put a lot of pressure on myself in sports in the past, and it got hard to enjoy it. Pickle ball is just fun.

Collette: How do you learn to have fun in sports?

Megan: Something I am working on learning is being able to control my emotions. I can be really hard on myself when I train. I’ll have a shooting practice that didn’t go great, I’ll struggle to let it go, and I’ll worry about it. Then the next day I could have a great shooting practice and feel really good about it. Finding the balance between these two is the challenge. It’s hard for me. When I am coaching and able to give back, that is where I find the most joy in sports. There is also moments where I feel like I am flowing on the court with my teammates and everyone has the same good energy. That part of sports is really fun, but it’s not always there. That is the challenge.

Collette: Tell us a bit about the sport of basketball and what it does for you.

Megan: Wheelchair basketball has done so much for me. After my accident, it was my second chance at life. It taught me how to hold my head up and show myself how capable I am. It gave me the opportunity to go to college and have teammates who could teach me about living with a disability.

Collette: What would you say is the essence of sports?

Megan: Learning to work together with the people around you. Learning how to lift each other up and encourage each other with our words, actions, and body language. In sports, you get to keep facing that. You get to keep trying to grow and move forward together. That is what sports is about to me.