Mixing in some bathroom humor and jokes about disabled people, Mark Zupan - one of the key players in the documentary "Murderball" - discussed the life of a quadriplegic rugby player Tuesday.
Zupan, one of the top quad rugby players in the country, spoke in Cohen Auditorium in a program sponsored by Lecture Series.
A quadriplegic at the C6-C7 vertebrae, Zupan broke his neck on Oct. 14, 1993. While Zupan slept off a night of drinking in the bed of his friend's pickup truck, the drunk friend crashed the truck, flinging Zupan into a canal and nearly taking his life.
Zupan did not sever his spine in the accident and maintained a level of mobility equivalent to that of a paraplegic.
One of the first things Zupan said to the audience was that he was "not here to preach." He wanted to outline the events in his life, tell some jokes, and let people make their own decisions. The result was a candid look at the life of a quadriplegic - a life that, beyond the wheelchair, was very normal.
Zupan's initial reactions to his new life were more optimistic than one would expect. Upon waking up in the hospital with tubes coming out of and going into him, he wrote the first words of his new life on a form board, asking the question, "I am lucky???"
In physical thearpy exercises, he laughed at the fact that his once toned and conditioned body could now barely sit up.
But it was Zupan's quick acceptance of his fate that allowed him to become what he is today. Humorously describing the difficulty of performing everyday tasks such as putting on deodorant and brushing his teeth, he said, "That's when you know life's going to be different - with the everyday things."
People would come up to him and yell, "'How are you today?' 'I'm not deaf!'" Zupan would reply. "It's not like I'm different."
Jokes aside, Zupan did talk about some of the difficult times he faced, particularly coming home for the first time and feeling isolated and dependent on his parents. But even that would not deter him, as he soon fixed these problems by "getting my independence back."
Zupan obtained a driver's license and a car with hand controls and was soon harassing friends night and day with possible itineraries. "Do you want to drive to Wisconsin?" he would ask.
Zupan was eventually able to return to competition when his physical therapist recommended wheelchair rugby. Zupan had been in sports since age five, playing soccer literally through the last day of his bipedal life.
When he first heard about the sport of wheelchair rugby, he immediately lit up. "Wait, you can hit people as hard as you want?" he said. "This one's good for me."
As anyone who has seen the film "Murderball" knows, this was the turning point in Zupan's life. From 1996 onwards, Zupan devoted his life to quad rugby, training "as hard as any Olympian." He changed his diet and quit drinking.
His hard work would pay off, as he made the U.S. World Championship team in 2002 and met the creators of the film after the competition.
"By far, [my accident] was the best thing that ever happened to me," he said. "I wouldn't change it."
Zupan found the fame he garnered from the film to be the most surreal thing of all. "When you see yourself in a movie, it's weird," he said.
But after all the autographs he signs, his Reebok billboard in Times Square and the celebrity parties, Zupan still remains down to earth. "People come up and say, 'Can we talk to you?'" he said. "But I think to myself, why the hell do you want to talk to me?"
He said he was pleased with the film not because of his fame, but because of the good it has done for quadriplegics. "The film showed [us] how we are...how we want to be treated," Zupan said. He said the film taught people that "wheelchair sports are for real," and greatly expanded the interest in such sports.
But perhaps most importantly, Zupan believes the film teaches a life lesson. "You're given only one hand to play, and you can either play or fold," he said. "I chose to play."
