Four Individuals Inducted into Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame in 2023

The National Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame Award recognizes outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions to summer and winter adaptive sports in two categories: Competitor and Contributor. The Hall of Fame was created to honor individuals who have had an influential role in the field of adaptive sports as well as athletes who have excelled in it.

COMPETITOR CATEGORY

The award in the Competitor category recognizes one individual (an athlete or coach) in summer sports as well as one individual in winter sports, who has been active in international competition. Race results, team participation, innovative coaching techniques, and event promotions are considered for this category.

The inductee on the winter competition side is Chris Young from East Sandwich, Massachusetts. While serving in the U.S. Coast Guard, Young was paralyzed in a plane crash in Alaska. He began adaptive skiing in 1986 and was named to the U.S. Disabled Ski Team in 1989. Young would be a member of the national team for 28 years, retiring in 2016.

Young is a five-time Paralympian, earning four medals. At the 1994 Winter Paralympics, he won a gold medal in slalom. He would win another gold medal at the 2002 Winter Paralympic Games in Super G, becoming the first Paralympic athlete to win gold in two different categories (Standing/Sitting). Overall, he has five World Club Globes and 27 World Cup podiums. In fact, Ski Racer Magazine named Young the 2003 and 2004 Disabled Skier of the Year.

Among his many other titles and wins, Young was the first disabled athlete (sitting) to compete in the U.S. Freeski and Snowboard Championships and to compete with abled-bodied team at the World Synchronized Ski Championship. In 2005, he won the ESPN X Games Mono skier X Gold and did so again in 2015, becoming the oldest X Games Gold Medalist.
 

He has also gone on to coach a number of adaptive athletes and Paralympians. Young coached the NEDS Disabled Ski Team/Loon from 1995 to 1997, mentoring teenagers including Tyler Walker and Laurie Stephens who later joined him as winning members of the US Team. Recently, he was elected to the board of directors of US Ski and Snowboard and named the chair of the Para Sport Committee. He has been a collaborator and consultant with just about every sit-ski designer as well as other companies. He has been a Test and Development Driver and part of the multi-discipline team at Toyota Racing Development. In 2010, Young was inducted into the California Sports Hall of Fame.

Barbi Baum from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the 2023 Hall of Fame inductee in the summer competitor category. Baum’s love for adaptive sports began at the University of Illinois, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree. She was president of their disabled sports organization. As an adaptive athlete most of her life, Baum has shared her time and talents endlessly encouraging new spinal cord injury patients and those with other disabilities to participate. She was one of the founding members of Three Rivers Adaptive Sports (1989), has been on the board since inception and president since 2015. She helped start the waterski program over 30 years ago and has been organizing the annual learn to ski clinic ever since.

Baum competed in the 1980 Paralympic Games in Holland, in swimming and track. Over the course of her career she has won many medals. She returned in 1988 in Innsbrook. In 1973, she was awarded the PA Governor’s Cup and has received the Volunteer Award from Harmarville Rehab Hospital and the Bob Ross Water Ski Volunteer Award in 2022.

CONTRIBUTOR CATEGORY

Two awards are also presented in the Contributor category, one for summer sports and another for winter sports. This award recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field, including innovative techniques, specialized equipment, program development, education or public relations.

The winter awardee in the contributor category is Chris Werhane of Arvada, Colorado. Werhane has served tens of thousands of individuals in skiing over two decades, traveling over 100 days per year to provide adaptive ski programs across the country and to train staff and volunteers to ensure the highest quality lessons. He also provides oversight and assistance in safety and risk management at many national adaptive ski events including the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic.

Werhane has been a key leader in the adaptive sports and recreation community across the country for many years. Currently employed by Adaptive Adventures, he is a difference maker in the adaptive sport community via his expertise, care for others, enthusiasm to serve and dedication to equity. Among some of his awards and recognition, Werhane was named the 2013 Outstanding WSC Volunteer Award as well as the 17th National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic Alpine Ski Instructor Extraordinaire. He also received that recognition at the 21st National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic.

Mark Grant, from Mesa, Arizona, was named to the Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame in the summer sports contributor category. Grant co-founded Mesa Association of Sports for the Disabled, known as Arizona Disabled Sports (AzDS), in 1989. The organization has served youth, adults, and veterans with a variety of sports and recreation activities since its inception. Mark’s most recent passion is the Air Gun programs. He has served as Move United’s National Veteran Air Gun Outreach Series Coordinator since 2015. He runs the program at AzDS as well connecting with about 20 athletes year-round and he’s expanding to developmentally disabled athletes through the partnership with the City of Mesa.

To learn more about the Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame, including a list of past award recipients, visit https://www.moveunitedsport.org/sports/adaptive-sports-awards/.