Athlete Kathy Urschel of Baldwinsville, New York passed away November 9 following an accident three days earlier.
Urschel, 46, was a longtime member of the United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA) and a Paralympian.
USABA Executive Director Mark Lucas released a statement expressing his sorrow and praise for Urschel. “A remarkably resilient, genuine, inspirational woman and fierce competitor with a zeal for life,” Lucas said. “Kathy lost her sight and hearing and faced them as minor inconveniences, leaving us with the legacy that true success in life is how we choose our attitude in any situation.”
Urschel had raced across the country on a tandem bike in seven days and won a silver medal in cycling at the Atlanta Paralympics. She participated in a canoe race in New Zealand and in the Sydney Paralympics, where she finished in 11th place. She was inducted into the Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
Urschel had an associate’s degree from Cazenovia College, as well as a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Syracuse University.
Urschel’s friend Bud Poliquin, a sports writer for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, wrote an article reminiscing about conversations he had with Urschel, who he remembers for her “prodigious energy,” her sense of humor and “her spirit and her grit.”
Urschel lost her sight and hearing before turning 21 from “vasculitis of an unknown etiology,” according to Poliquin’s memory of her explanation. Later in life she suffered an accident that left her partially paralyzed and she continued to canoe, cycle and ski competitively.
Urschel died from brain damage after falling down a flight of stairs at a friend’s house in Burlington, Vermont that left her in a coma. “And the mind staggers as it tries to understand,” Poliquin wrote as he recounted the terrible news.
“Heck, she’d quite literally run into trees while training, only to pick her bloodied self up and run some more,” said Poliquin. “And she’d done all this as a feisty woman who would tell any person who asked that she was not handicapped, only challenged . . . and not as much as that person might have thought.
Poliquin remembered Urschel telling him, “I’m blind/deaf. But so what? Put it behind you. I’m no different than anybody else. I’m just like everyone you know.”
Urschel was writing her autobiography, “Life Cycles,” with the author Doug Childers at the time of her death.
This article was published in the December 2010 issue of Able News. Photo of Kathy Urschel and Mike Hopper by the United States Association of Blind Athletes.
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