Patrick Standen, Living with disability
The fullback nicknamed “Shriner” by his teammates was anxiously running through plays during practice at the Springfield, Vt. high school football field. They called him Shriner because he dreamed of playing in the annual Vermont vs. New Hampshire Shrine Bowl.
A 16-year-old junior, Shriner was scheduled in October 1980 to start his first varsity football game. But after being tackled in practice, Shriner’s face was accidentally stepped on by a teammate, “Noodle” Sherwood. Noodle weighed 270 pounds and had broken Shriner’s nose - an injury that would become utterly meaningless by the end of the night.
One fateful day
Patrick “Shriner” Standen was born in Wethersfield, Vt. in 1964. He attended Springfield High School as a four-sport athlete, participating in football, hockey, baseball and wrestling. On Oct. 8, 1980, just hours after breaking his nose, Standen was left crippled by a car accident.
Standen had been riding in the backseat when the rear tire caught the soft-shoulder of the road and rolled down an embankment. The back end of the car struck a tree, breaking Standen’s back in four places. The crash also punctured Standen’s lung, broke his femur, shattered his left shoulder and lacerated his head. His two friends walked away unharmed.
“It kind of just went from tragic to farcical as the evening wore on,” Standen says. “When the volunteer fire department came, they just jumped in the car, grabbed my legs, and just pulled me right out of the car without stabilizing my back.”
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St. Michael's philosophy professor Patrick Standen carves through the ice at Cairns Arena in South Burlington, Vt. on his adaptive hockey sled. |
It wasn’t until later that the volunteers realized their mistake and finally braced Standen. He was rushed to a local hospital and then taken to Mary Hitchcock Memorial Center in Hanover, N.H.
“The ambulance driver got lost in the city of Hanover,” Standen says. “My father actually had to bump into the back of the ambulance because it was going down the wrong road. I can laugh about it now, but I’m sure it was just horrifying for my parents.”
Standen was in a coma for five days. He spent a month at Mary Hitchock before being flown to Craig Hospital in Denver, Colo., a rehab facility specializing in spinal injuries. After two months of treatment at Craig, Standen returned home to Vermont, paralyzed from the waist down.
Post high school
Standen took classes while at Craig in Colorado, but Springfield High School would not accept the credits when he returned. As a result, he failed all of his courses for the semester and ended up graduating with the lowest GPA in his class. But Standen was not deterred and enrolled in the University of Vermont in 1984.
After receiving a degree in philosophy from UVM in 1988, Standen decided to attend graduate school. He spent a year at Harvard before transferring to Boston University and eventually finishing at Boston College. He received his master’s degree in philosophy in 1991.
Standen has been teaching philosophy for 18 years at numerous colleges, including Salem State, Simmons, Castleton State and Norwich University. He is currently in his fourth year at St. Michael’s College.
Senior Allison Levesque, who took a course with Standen last year, says his classes are always full.
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These sleds are used by disabled athletes for the sport of sled hockey. They are equipped with a seat and two runner blades. (Photo by Nick Daley) |
“His classes are really hard to get into because everybody wants to take him,” Levesque says. “I remember that if students didn’t get there early, they wouldn’t be able to get a seat. There were several times when students sat on the floor through his lecture.”
It was during his early years at St. Michael’s that Standen began thinking about creating a local athletic association for the handicapped. He was always interested in athletics and frequently had to travel long distances to play the sports he loved.
“If I wanted to play wheelchair basketball or sled hockey or ski, I would have to travel hours to play with a team,” Standen says. “Over time I started to think, ‘Why aren’t these sports offered here in Vermont?’”
In 1999, Standen started discussing with other disabled athletes his idea of establishing a nonprofit organization to support disabled athletics in Vermont.
“I started to think about the skills that you need to be successful in life, and a lot of those skills you get in sports,” he says. “Teamwork, self-discipline, communication, working toward a goal…you absorb them without knowing that you’re doing so when you’re a kid. If you have a disability very early on or if you’re born with a disability, you’re precluded from engaging in sports.”
Standen admits to a semi-selfish reason for creating the organization; he wanted others nearby to play with. After the lengthy process of applying for tax-exempt status, the Northeast Disabled Athletic Association (NDAA) was officially established in May 2003.
The NDAA
The mission of the NDAA is “to provide recreational and competitive athletic opportunities for people with physical disabilities, and to support disabled athletes in their pursuit of excellence.” Standen is president as well as co-founder.
The NDAA sponsors sports such as wheelchair basketball, sled hockey, skiing, tennis, handcycling, sailing and even water-skiing. Standen says the NDAA fund-raises to support the expensive equipment disabled athletes need to participate. Sailing is one of Standen’s personal passions, and one of the NDAA’s most successful sports.
Since the summer of 2003, the NDAA has sponsored the annual Lake Champlain Invitational Martin 16 Sailing Regatta. The event has gained local recognition among sailors with disabilities. Grace Lance is a board member of the NDAA and got involved with the organization after she volunteered at the sailing regatta.
“The first time I went to the regatta I was struck by how fantastic it was to see people with disabilities sailing,” Lance says.
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Patrick Standen, who has been in a wheelchair since he was 16, created the Northeast Disabled Athletic Association in 2003. (Photo by Nick Daley) |
Lance is an able-bodied member of the NDAA who helps solicit donations for the organization. She says Standen embraces his disabilities and is doing great things for the handicapped through the NDAA.
“Patrick is the motivating person behind the whole organization,” Lance says. “We have a strong, diverse board now and it will be interesting to see where the organization goes in the next year or two.”
Cleary Buckley has been under NDAA auspices since last year, participating in basketball, sled hockey, handcyling and water-skiing. Buckley, 43, has been a paraplegic since he fell off a roof 24 years ago. He says the NDAA is hugely important to him and others with disabilities.
“The NDAA makes a big difference in my life,” Buckley says. “It’s great for me physically and mentally. I just play to have fun and I feel like there is a good emphasis on being competitive, while making everyone feel comfortable too.”
Standen says one of his biggest rewards for starting the NDAA is being able to provide people with the opportunities he never had. He is continually striving to entice more participants, often visiting hospitals to talk with the disabled and make them more aware of their options.
“To just give up is pretty bleak, so you go on and you live,” Standen says. “You ask yourself, ‘Do I just want to live a meager life or do I want to really take the bull by the horns and live as much as I can?’ So you learn to roll with the punches and get what you want to get out of life.”
To this day, Standen credits his time at Craig Hospital for helping him learn to cope with his disability.
“What really changed everything was when I went out to Colorado,” he says. “At Craig, I experienced a different attitude. I was taught, ‘OK, you’re disabled, you’re paralyzed, you’re in a wheelchair…now let’s learn how to live.’”