By Moses Sawatzky
Sam Grewe stood on the podium and received his silver medal at the 2016 Paralympic games in Rio De Janeiro. Although he is a very accomplished athlete he has had to work very hard and he has been through a lot to get to this point.
It all started in middle school at Northridge. Sam had been feeling pains in his leg. He just dealt with them, but as they got worse Sam had to get it checked. On December 24, 2011 he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. It is a bone cancer which had spread in his knee.
“The tumor was the size of a fist”
He had 21 chemo sessions. Each session was about a week long. They were every other week. “It was a lengthy process,” Grewe told reporters when asked about the process. “I would have a session, then I would have a week off basically to recover.”
The Notre Dame football team’s assistant coach was visiting the hospital Grewe was at when he first met him. They talked and then the Notre Dame football team decided to “adopt” Grewe. That means that he got to hang out with the team, and he also got to go to all of their home games. He even got to go to the national championship game in Miami.
The team was motivated by Grewe’s process. After getting his leg amputated, it took Grewe a long time to get used to the new way of walking. It took him six months to get used to his prosthetic leg. He had been playing basketball and lacrosse before but now he found it hard to keep up, so he switched to track.
“It was after my sophomore year that I got involved in track. And then my love for high jump narrowed it down.” Grewe answered reporters about when he was interested in track. From there Grewe has progressed very quickly. Going into his freshmen year of college at Notre Dame, Grewe has already accomplished much. At the 2015 world championships in Qatar Grewe was ranked last, but he went in there and won gold. He then went to the 2016 Paralympic games and won Silver.
Grewe is only three centimeters off of the para high jump world record. “I am a vegetarian now, which I hate,” Grewe told reporters after being asked what steps he was taking to get the world record. He says that he is trying to lose every ounce of fat.
Sam Grewe; a very inspiring athlete and person.