Max Carter will be representing Midview in the wheelchair division at the OHSAA state track and field meet in June, but his road to Columbus is different than most.
In December 2021 while playing in a hockey game, Carter was injured while being hit into the boards. It wasn’t just a common hockey play, as he broke his T12 vertebrae and became paralyzed from the hips down.
“A lot of people have told me that it would’ve affected them more,” Carter said. “It would make them depressed or they wouldn’t want to do anything. I’ve never really felt that. I’ve tried to do as much as I can since my accident.”
Despite going through such a life-changing injury, Carter said he’s in his best mental state. He never took hockey seriously before it happened, he just played for fun. Now he’s very motivated to be good at the different sports that he’s able to participate in. He appreciates he still has use of his arms.
“I’m just really motivated to do good right now, especially in sled hockey and track,” Carter said. “I’m just living life. I don’t take anything too seriously. I’m not really stressed about too much, even though I’m a senior about to enter adulthood.”
That comment captures how Carter feels right now. He wants to excel at hockey and track and field as a competitor, but he’s calm and collected about it all. Sled hockey is his main sport, and he likes to think of racing in track as conditioning. Carter said that he’s not very emotionally attached to his track results, and he probably wouldn’t be a track athlete if he wouldn’t have gotten injured. Yet, here he is, with the state meet fast-approaching.
Carter was planning to pole vault as a freshman, but COVID-19 got in the way. He thought about doing it again as a sophomore, but didn’t hear anything about track and field starting up until it was too late. His injury occurred in the winter of his junior year, and now there’s less than one month left of his senior year. Even this year, it took some convincing from Coach Kevin Radigan to participate in track and field.
“I think a lot about what my life would be like if my injury never happened,” Carter said. “I know for a fact that I would be on Midview’s boys volleyball team, and that’s the only thing I really know for sure. I probably wouldn’t have been in track if I didn’t get injured.”
While participating in his events, it’s a different workout with Carter’s arms doing the hard work. He competes in the 100 and 400, and also throws seated shot put. Even though he likes to say his track efforts help him for sled hockey, Carter has qualified for the state meet in all three events. He just qualified in shot put at last week’s Bell Invitational at Rocky River.
Since Carter decided to compete in track and field, Midview has been all in supporting him. Michaela Mccune is a nurse that joined the staff wanting to work with Carter. Mccune and assistant coach Kathy Manning attended training sessions, and Midview then had the ability and capacity to have him compete, Radigan said.
Radigan’s father suffered a similar injury to Carter, and he remembers how much his father wanted to do things and stay involved. Radigan’s thoughts of keeping Carter involved in that way have come to fruition, and now he’s a three-time state qualifier.
“If he becomes this great sled hockey player like he wants, and track gives him a little piece of being in shape and comes out of here as a state champion, that would be cool,” Radigan said. “People like Max that are going through something deserve to compete at the same level as everybody else. This is a prime example, the team loves that he’s out here.”
While competing in sled hockey, Carter met Casey Followay, who has Spina Bifida, and he wanted to compete in sports despite his disability. In 2009, Casey’s mom Lisa Followay founded Adapted Sports Ohio in Wooster. The organization was founded to give disabled kids the chance to participate in athletics, and it also donated Carter’s racing chair.
As an athlete, Followay was a national paralympic champion in the 200, and state champion. He became Carter’s inspiration to compete in track and field. Followay is talented in track and field and sled hockey, and he helped inspire Carter to train and follow in his footsteps.
Carter has met some of the best sled hockey players in the world, such as Followay, and his goal to play with them someday. The sled hockey season ended in April, and will start back up again in the fall. Until then, Carter will trying to find as much ice time as he can, and will attend Lorain County Community College for a year and re-access after that school year.
Until then, he will continue to do what he’s been doing for a year and half, and that’s making the most out of his situation.
“It’s great knowing that if you get disabled from the waist down, that anyone can do whatever sport they want realistically,” Carter said.
