Paul Schulte really had no intention of coming back to play wheelchair basketball.
The Latter-day Saint who lives with his wife and son in Bradenton, Florida, had already competed with the U.S. national team for most of two decades, from his tryout in 1997 until his retirement in 2015. Schulte played at the Paralympics in 2000, 2008 and 2012, earning two bronze medals.
He could still play the sport but thought his competitive days were over.
Then Schulte was introduced to handcyling and some older men — he calls them his “mentors” — in their 50s and 60s who showed him that his body was still capable of performing at a high level. He also started lifting weights with his son.
“As basketball players, we think we’re pretty washed up when we get over 35 or 40 years old, but they definitely helped me understand how I could train differently and still get great results,” he said.
With renewed confidence in his physical abilities, deep feelings of support from a loving Heavenly Father and a desire to show his 14-year-old son it was possible, Schulte tried out for the U.S. national wheelchair basketball squad and made the 12-man 2024 Paralympic roster.
Now 45, Schulte, who serves as bishopric second counselor in the University Park Ward of the Sarasota Florida Stake, hopes to help Team USA win a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. The men’s wheelchair basketball team won gold both in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Now, Team USA is going for its third consecutive gold medal.
“If I can contribute in any way to their success, I want to do so,” Schulte said. “If they need me to hand out water, that’s what I’ll do.”
A blessing, not a tragedy
As a child growing up in Manchester, Michigan, Schulte had a deep love of sports.
“I was super, super into sports, probably a little bit too much because I ignored everything else,” he said.
Schulte’s life changed at age 10 when he, his mother and his brother were involved in a car accident. Schulte was in the back seat, where the seat belt had only a lap strap and no shoulder strap. As they collided with the other vehicle, the impact caused his upper body to whiplash, resulting in a spinal cord injury that left him with paralysis from the waist down.
After the accident, Schulte received a priesthood blessing in which he was promised that his new circumstances would “be a blessing in his life, and not a tragedy.”
“It has taken years for that to come about, but I can absolutely say that it is true,” he said while also acknowledging the difficulties others in wheelchairs have. “My disability and the sports I have played paid for college, gave me a career and introduced me to many amazing people and mentors, and just put me on this path that has given me just as many opportunities. ... Aside from my wife and son, it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Faith and wheelchair basketball
Being in a wheelchair helped Schulte to develop a relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
“I learned on my own, independently and very powerfully, that there is a God and that He knows us and that He will come to the rescue as often as we consistently, sincerely ask Him to,” he said.
But sports were another story.
Early on, Schulte associated sports with having legs, and his no longer functioned. “If I can’t run and I can’t play baseball, then who am I? What’s worth living for?” he said.
Schulte was not even remotely interested when invited to play wheelchair basketball. “It didn’t sound very competitive or fun, so I turned down invitations for four years,” he said.
Finally at age 14, Schulte accepted an invitation to attend an adult men’s wheelchair basketball practice. There, he encountered skilled athletes who could sink 3-pointers and do cartwheels with their wheelchairs. Witnessing their athleticism shattered his preconceptions about wheelchair sports, and from that moment on, he was hooked.
“Getting involved in wheelchair basketball opened up this whole new world to me that I didn’t know existed,” he said.
Highlights of a wheelchair basketball career
One highlight of Schulte’s career was making the U.S. national team for the first time.
From age 14 to 18 he continued to play with those same, “wildly athletic” players who week after week would delight in blocking his shots. But Schulte said he loved every second of it.
“I didn’t want to be given anything. I wanted a challenge. And boy, they gave me a challenge,” he said. “Playing with them every week throughout my high school years sped up my development.”
At 18, he received a tryout invitation and made the team. “All of the sudden I was playing with my heroes, the dream team of wheelchair basketball,” he said. “They taught me how to work harder than I’d ever imagined was possible.”
It has been meaningful for Schulte to represent his country as a wheelchair basketball player. He has traveled and competed in almost 30 countries during his career. Of his many experiences, two stand out.
First, when he scored 30 points in each of the final two games and was named tournament MVP for helping his team to win the 2002 world championship.
And secondly, when he hit a last-second 3-point shot to win the bronze in the 2000 Paralympics against Great Britain.
Heavenly help
Striving to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost and live a righteous life, including consistent daily scripture study, helped Schulte to make his wheelchair basketball comeback.
“When I decided I was going to try out for the Paralympic team again, I just thought, ‘I don’t want to do anything where the Lord isn’t my partner in it,’” he said. “The Lord has helped me so many times in this process.”
Schulte continued: “The consistency of the answers and the help that has come almost seem to say, ‘I will always help you with whatever is most important to you, as long as it doesn’t take you further away from Me. And on the contrary, as long as it brings you closer to Me, I’ll always help you with it.’”
Old but feeling ‘fast’
In many ways, Schulte says his story parallels “The Rookie,” a 2002 film based on the true story of pitcher Jim Morris, who made his Major League Baseball debut at age 35 after nearly a decade out of professional baseball.
Schulte is set to become the oldest member of the U.S. Paralympic men’s wheelchair basketball team since 2000, when Dave Kiley competed at 47. Schulte is nine years older than anyone else on the Paris team. The team’s youngest player, 19-year-old A.J. Fitzpatrick, wasn’t alive when Schulte made his Paralympic debut.
“I feel fast,” said Schulte, who works as a mechanical engineer at Top End Sports, an adaptive sports wheelchair manufacturing company. “I’ve gotten in the kind of shape I was when I was a freshman in college. I feel as fast as I have ever felt.”
Winning a gold medal at the Paralympics would mean a lot to Schulte.
“I have the opportunity to play every day with some of the best players in the world, who happen to be some of the best people as well,” he said. “There’s a brotherhood that forms when you compete and train in other countries together, and I want to win for them as much as I want to win for myself and my family.”
