Marcia Bevard-Kulick
Competition | 1998
At the age of 23 Marcia was involved in a motorcycle accident that left her without the use of her legs. She saw that as a challenge and thrived. She enrolled at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and became the first person with a disability to swim on an intercollegiate swim team. She graduated in 1984 with an interdisciplinary studies therapeutic recreation major and a physical education minor. She received a master of education degree in 1988.
In 1985, UMD established the Marcia Bevard-Kulick Scholarship which is awarded annually to students with disabilities. She was the first disabled woman athlete to be on the advisory board of the Women’s Sports Foundation, the first disabled athlete to be named a “Healthy American Fitness Leader”; and the first paraplegic to be certified by the American Red Cross as a Lifeguard.
Marcia’s wheelchair athletics career spanned more than three decades. This gifted well-rounded athlete received national and international acclaim in track; field; road racing; tennis; basketball; downhill skiing and swimming. In 1982 she won nine gold medals in the Pan American Wheelchair Games in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the Paralympics Games in 1984 at Stoke Mandeville in England she won six gold medals and set five world and Olympic records in swimming. At one time, Marcia held national and international records in downhill skiing, tennis, basketball and marathons.
Marcia was one of the first women wheelchair athletes across the finish line one year in the Boston Marathon and wheeled in twelve other marathons in the U.S., Japan and Hawaii. In 1998 she was inducted into the Wheelchair Sports USA Hall of Fame. Her legacy will continue to inspire athletes for many years to come.
Marcia served as the Aquatic Director at the Minneapolis Courage Center for many years.
