Sport and Spirit

Every year, the National Veterans Wheelchair Games welcomes back familiar faces, whether they are new athletes who only started competing last year or seasoned competitors who go back decades. But for Holly Koester, a veteran of the U.S. Army from Walton Hills, Ohio, this year marks her eighteenth consecutive year competing in the Games.

Koester was injured in 1990, while on alert at the Redstone Arsenal in northern Alabama, when a military vehicle she was driving overturned, causing a spinal cord injury that paralyzed her from the waist down. "Sports had always been a big part of my life," Koester said, "but [after my injury] I figured I would just be sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else play."

Thankfully, Koester didn't have to sit on the sidelines for very long; she became involved in wheelchair sports soon after her injury, competing in her first Wheelchair Games only six months after she began using the wheelchair. She won two gold and two silver medals in that first year alone.

Not only has Koester returned to the Games every year since, earning the prestigious Spirit of the Games Award in 1996; she has also participated in wheelchair sports all across the country. She has competed in the Ohio Wheelchair Games since 1991 and attends regional wheelchair games in Maryland, South Carolina and Minnesota. Furthermore, she has completed over 80 26.2-mile marathons in almost every state; Koester is soon to become the first athlete, male or female, to complete a marathon in all fifty states.

"Once I completed one marathon, I couldn't stop!" she said. "It's cool to be the first woman to, fingers crossed, achieve this record. I hope it will encourage other women and girls to get involved in sports."

Needless to say, wheelchair sports are an integral part of Koester's life; they were an integral part of her recovery from her injury as well. The Games and other sporting events "[keep] me healthy and active, [and] remind me that I can still do many things even though I can't walk," she says. "Sometimes it's hard to get motivated to get out there and train, but I always feel great once I get out there and start pushing."

Outside of her sporting life, Koester is a substitute teacher at her local public school and sports director for the PVA Buckeye Chapter. Her hobbies include quilting and participating in dog competitions.

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