Doug Pringle
Competition | 1997
As a young Second Lieutenant just graduated from West Point, Doug Pringle’s immediate future was deploying to Vietnam. In 1968, during a firefight with NVA troops, Lieutenant Pringle was hit by a RPG and had his right leg amputated just below the knee. During his rehabilitation, he spent eight months in the Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco with dozens of other amputees. While there, a group of disabled World War II veterans from the 10th Mountain Division came to his ward to invite him and others to go skiing. Although hesitant at first, he eventually participated and found the experience to be life changing.
In 1969 he and 13 other amputees organized and raced in an Amputee Championship Race at Donner Summit. This was the catalyst for the founding of what is now Disabled Sports USA and Doug was central in its evolution and development. He served as the President of the founding chapter, DSUSA Far West and was involved in the founding of 25 more chapters throughout the USA in the 1970s.
In a career spanning a half-century, Doug launched 42 adaptive learn-to-ski programs around the United States. In the 1990s he was a member of the United States Olympic Committee, bringing focus and equality to the United States Paralympic Team. He traveled to many foreign countries establishing Disabled Sports Programs on an International level. In addition, Doug wrote the first curriculum on teaching people with blindness to ski.
