Judy Benoit
Contributor | 1988
Judy Benoit discovered wheelchair sports when she enrolled at the University of Illinois in the early sixties. As an undergraduate student, she began training with the swim team; track and field teams; and was competitive in table tennis. She competed in all four events at the National Wheelchair Games in 1964 where swimming was her strongest event. She was a member of the 1965 U.S. Wheelchair Team that competed in the Stoke Mandeville Games in England and participated in exhibition games in Spain and France.
In 1966, Judy was a member of the demonstration team that was invited to Kingston, Jamaica, to introduce wheelchair sports to the island nation. In 1968, she represented the USA on the swim team in the Paralympic Games in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1975, she was on the swim team that competed in the Pan American Games in Mexico City. July joined a small number of women wheelchair athletes who encourage and help train their peers to become involved in the sport. Benoit served on the National Wheelchair Athletic Committee from the late 1960’s through the 1980’s as a member of the Regional Sports Group Council.
In 1974, Judy and fellow athlete Natalie Bacon moved to Hawaii where they co-founded the Hawaii Wheelchair Athletic Association and formed the first wheelchair sports team in the state. In 1977, Judy relocated to California and joined the Far West Wheelchair Athletic Association that hosted the XXI National Wheelchair Games. She was responsible for organizing and staffing the Association’s first office. Judy’s legacy for developing wheelchair sports organizations across the nation endures to this day.
