Jack Whitman
Achievements
Adaptive Sports Hall of FameJack Whitman was the only quadriplegic archery athlete on the U.S. Wheelchair Team who competed in the first Paralympic Games in Rome. On September 20, 1960, Jack won the first gold medal awarded at the Paralympic Games—on his 30th birthday.
For four years, starting with the National Wheelchair Games in 1960, he was undefeated and held the national or world records for every event in which he competed, including the American round at the Nationals and the Windsor Rounds at the Rome Paralympics. In international competition at Stoke Mandeville, England, he gold-medaled in the FITA, Windsor, and Albion rounds in 1962 and 1963. His first competitive loss came at the Tokyo Paralympics in 1964.
Jack was one of the first wheelchair athletes to compete in able-bodied tournaments at the regional and national levels beginning in 1960. A serious shoulder problem ended his archery career, but he continued to enjoy the sport for several ensuing years as the archery coach for the Illinois Gizz Kids and Team USA Archery.
Jack played freshman football and baseball at the University of Illinois before a gymnastics injury to the sixth cervical vertebra in November 1949. He served on the National Wheelchair Athletic Committee during the sixties and seventies and was instrumental in making archery one of the premier events in wheelchair sports. Jack Whitman is directly responsible for the tremendous early success experienced by Team USA’s archers in international competition.