For Alabama Adapted Athletics directors Brent Hardin and Margaret Stran, last week’s Homecoming celebration felt like the culmination of 23 years of hard work.
The pair, who founded the program in 2003 and have overseen its growth into a perennial championship winner across wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis and para track and field, were named grand marshals of the University’s annual Homecoming parade. The honor included not just leading the parade, but also giving speeches and being a part of the coin toss at the Crimson Tide football game, which the duo won’t soon forget.
“It’s a little hard to describe the feeling that we had,” Hardin said in an interview with The Crimson White. “I think being in the parade was one of this great gratitude of being able to be a part of this University [and to] be a part of a university that believes in adapted athletics and has helped us grow this program.”
Despite the immense success Stran and Hardin’s program has mustered, its popularity has not yet matched its trophy case. The honor gave the pair a chance to provide visibility to their student-athletes and their accomplishments through a platform that isn’t just University-wide, but statewide, too.
Their student-athletes celebrated the duo’s feat, but not without a little heckling.
“I think it’s been fun. [They have] mostly just teased us and kind of joked around with us, things like that,” Hardin said. “And it’s just been kind of a running joke. They’ve been calling us grand marshals and things like that.”
Along with the opportunity to grow the program’s audience, Stran saw a chance to give Alabama fans who are disabled a role model, something she did not have growing up. A pioneer of collegiate wheelchair basketball, Stran has paved the way for many in the realm, but she remains intent on growing her impact.
Formerly a three-time national champion in her collegiate playing days at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Stran won another three as the Crimson Tide’s coach and hopes the honor will give young athletes across Alabama the drive to find their passions.
“When I was their age, I didn’t have a whole lot of role models who looked like me,” she said. “It’s to provide that opportunity for them to see that using a wheelchair means that you can have a job, and you can have an impact on the world around you. You know, it matters, and they don’t need to be like me or do what I do, but it’s just really nice to look around and see, ‘Oh, look, there’s people like me,’ because, like I said, when I was in college, there weren’t any teachers who were using wheelchairs.”
The pair cherished the opportunity to represent the program they have built from the ground up into one of the University of Alabama’s most successful programs and to provide more kids across Alabama with the motivation to keep dreaming.
Hence then, the article about stran hardin reflect on memorable homecoming experience as grand marshals was published today ( ) and is available on The Crimson White ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Stran, Hardin reflect on memorable Homecoming experience as grand marshals )
Also on site :