Paralyzed at 13, She Thought Her Athletic Dreams Were Over. 7 Years Later, She’s Found New Ways to Make Them Come True (Exclusive)
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Credit: Courtesy of Sydney Fowler
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Sydney Fowler discovered adaptive sports after a spinal cord injury left her paralyzed at age 13
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She joined Clemson University’s wheelchair tennis team and competes in CrossFit and water skiing
Fowler hopes to inspire others with disabilities and dreams of competing in tennis at the Paralympics
Six months after becoming paralyzed from the chest down, Sydney Fowler arrived at a camp believing her life as an athlete was over.
Before her injury in December 2018, Fowler had spent her days playing volleyball and taking CrossFit classes, dreaming of competing in college. But after a staph infection compressed her spinal cord at age 13, she didn’t know whether sports could still have a place in her life.
That changed when she attended Adventure Skills Workshop, a camp run through the Shepherd Center in Alabama that introduces people with spinal cord and brain injuries to adaptive sports. Over the course of the camp, Fowler tried nearly every activity available, including tennis, rugby, swimming, zip-lining, rock climbing and water skiing. With each new sport, she began reclaiming a part of herself she feared paralysis had taken away.
“I saw this whole new world of like all these kinds of sports that I could play,” Fowler, now 21, tells PEOPLE exclusively.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m totally not done being an athlete,’ ” the South Carolina native recalls thinking. “Like I’m going to get back into this.”
Sydney Fowler in the hospital.Credit: Courtesy of Sydney Flower
Of all the sports she tried, water skiing felt especially familiar. Fowler had grown up around the water, and the Shepherd Center’s adaptive water-skiing team offered her a way to return to something she had always loved. She soon joined the team and learned how to trick ski and slalom ski.
Fowler carried that renewed sense of possibility home with her. Throughout high school, she water-skied nearly every day while also returning to CrossFit, an activity she had enjoyed before becoming paralyzed.
While volleyball was difficult to adapt to her level of injury, Fowler says CrossFit gave her room to experiment. Learning to modify familiar exercises became part of both the challenge and the appeal.
“The community around CrossFit is just so, so cool,” she says. “And so to have them back me up and then relearn how to do that was so fun.”
Sydney Fowler water skiing.Credit: Courtesy of Sydney Flower
Rather than focusing on what she could no longer do, Fowler became determined to find new ways to participate.
“That was honestly a part of it that I just loved so much of like, okay, I’m excited to figure out a way to adapt this,” she says. “Like the saying, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And the will is there because I was so determined to get into everything sports-related.”
As she approached the end of high school, Fowler began considering how she could build a future around her interests. She wanted to compete in college, but she was also drawn to marketing and social media — particularly their potential to help others navigate life after paralysis.
Since her injury, Fowler has shared her story online, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views across her videos.
“I’ve really always wanted to get involved with helping people like 13-year-old freshly paralyzed Syd,” she says.
“I feel like there were so many people that helped me and showed me a future of like, ‘Okay, wait, there is still a life to live,’ ” she adds. “And so it was just so important to me that like once I was capable that I could do that for other people.”
While sharing her experiences allowed Fowler to help others, she remained equally determined to pursue her own athletic goals. She contacted several schools with adaptive sports programs, including Clemson University. Having fallen in love with water skiing, she hoped to join the school’s club team.
“I was like, ‘I really just wanna water ski for like the club team,’ ” she recalls. “‘Is there any way that I could do that?’ ”
Clemson invited Fowler to tour its adaptive recreation program. During the visit, however, her itinerary took an unexpected turn when she arrived at the tennis center and began meeting coaches and athletic trainers.
Fowler had tried tennis recreationally at Adventure Skills Workshop and subsequent camps, but she had never seriously trained or competed in the sport. So when Clemson’s coaches told her they wanted to recruit her for wheelchair tennis, she was stunned.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t play tennis. Like what do you mean?’ ” she recalls.
Sydney Fowler participating in CrossFit.Credit: Courtesy of Sydney Flower
Fowler repeatedly reminded them that she had come to Clemson to discuss water skiing. The coaches, however, saw broader athletic potential.
“They basically were like, ‘That’s okay. You’re athletic. Like we’ve seen your videos, like water skiing doing CrossFit. Like we’ll teach you. Like, you’re an athlete. We got this,’ ” she recalls.
The unexpected offer gave Fowler a new path toward the college athletic career she had dreamed of before becoming paralyzed. It wasn’t volleyball or even water skiing, but it was an opportunity to compete as part of a team.
In the fall of 2023, Fowler began attending Anderson University, a smaller school neighboring Clemson. Although she is an Anderson student, she competes as an affiliate player on Clemson’s wheelchair tennis team through Clemson’s adaptive sports program.
Her schedule soon reflected the demands of college athletics, with tennis practices three days a week and weightlifting on the other two. On top of that, she continued training in CrossFit.
“It was so amazing because again, like I had that team and it genuinely was like what I had dreamed of,” she says. “And so it was just so cool that it was possible even though I was in a wheelchair.”
Sydney Flower playing tennis.Credit: Courtesy of Sydney Flower
As Fowler settled into her college career, her athletic ambitions continued to grow. She advanced through a multistage CrossFit competition process that included the Open and semifinals, eventually earning a place at a competition in Las Vegas. There, she competed alongside athletes from around the world and finished fourth.
For Fowler, the achievement represented another childhood dream coming true in a form she never could have anticipated at 13.
“Little Syd’s dreams are all coming true,” she says. “It’s not how I envisioned them when I was, you know, walking and doing all those things, but it’s exactly what I always wanted.”
“It was just such a full circle, surreal moment to have once looked up to the people that were at this level and then to be there after years and years of like hard work,” she adds. “It just meant so much to me.”
Even as tennis and CrossFit became major parts of her life, Fowler never abandoned the sport that first showed her she could still be an athlete. She continues to water ski and hopes to compete in it again in the future.
Meanwhile, her athletic world has continued to expand. Fowler is also a member of the U.S. Handball Team, giving her the opportunity to represent her country.
“I just love getting involved with everything that life has to offer now being in a wheelchair,” she says. “And it’s like weird because yeah, I’m in a wheelchair which in some ways limits me, but it also opened up this whole new world of like possibilities and getting plugged into all these communities that are literally life changing.”
“Like it’s not been easy for sure,” she adds. “And I don’t wanna downplay genuinely the challenges that have been put in front of me, but at the same time, it’s like silly to overlook the things that have come into my life because of all of the adaptive opportunities. It’s so cool.”
With that perspective, Fowler continues to set her sights higher. She wants to compete in CrossFit, develop further as a tennis player and travel internationally with the U.S. Handball Team. She has also started a nonprofit that she hopes to grow to support other members of the disabled community.
Her biggest athletic dream, however, is earning the opportunity to compete in tennis at the Paralympics.
“Would love to have a chance at going for tennis,” she says. “That, that’s a big dream and a big goal and something I’m gonna have to continue to work really hard at. But that is my goal. That’s what I’m aiming to do.”
“Currently I feel like I’m living the dreams that I thought were not possible,” she adds. “And that gives me encouragement even for my future of like, okay, if I thought that this wasn’t possible, how much further can I do and go and all of that. So just never stop dreaming.”
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