By Diego Martinez
The day was December 24, 2011 after having pain in right leg for sometime Sam Grewe was diagnosed with osteosarcoma a rare bone cancer in his right leg that was spreading. He told Write on Sports Tuesday, July 11, 2017.
Will I die? What will happen to my leg? These question started running through his mind after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma. He had to get his right leg amputated 3 months into chemotherapy.
“It was a dull pain at first, later became a sharp stabbing pain.” Grewe told Write On Sports (WoS).
One of the assistant coaches from Notre Dame talked with Grewe and they became friends. Grewe started going to practices one week and the next week he would go to his chemotherapy.
“I was very involved… when I was in the hospital the [Notre Dame] players would visit me .”
Grewe told WoS.
In his sophomore year at Northridge High School (NHS) Grewe started competing in Track and Field after overcoming the cancer. He later decided to just do high jumping in NHS.
“After a year or two it [prosthetic] become natural.” Grewe stated while WoS interviewed him. He later tried out for regional high jumping and after some practice he went to Toronto. He later qualified to compete in Doha, Qatar at the IPC Athletics World Championships. He was the youngest in the team and was thrown in the back. He ended up winning gold out of everyone in the world.
In 2016 Grewe went to the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
“Rio was a mess there was zika, sewage in the water, crime rates were high, bodies washed up on the beach.” Sam competed in the high jumping and won a silver medal with a jump of 1.86 meters (6.102362 feet) he lost to Mariyappan Thangavelu by 3 cm (1.89 meters). Grewe’s goal is to beat the record that Arnold Boldt set on June 17, 1980, his record was 1.96 meters.