Rugby On Wheels Stokes Never-Quit Spirit Of Athlete

The 49-yard field goal record Neil Gustafson set for Lakeland High in 1994 still stands. But Neil doesn’t.

He plays ball seated now, maneuvering his wheelchair on the rugby court as strategically as he used to run the football field as a wide receiver.

“This game’s put one of the missing pieces back into my life,” says Neil, who’s working toward a degree in clinical psychology. “I can still play at a very high level of competition.”

The highest. Last month, Neil snagged a spot on the U.S. National Quad Rugby team and will play in Australia and New Zealand this summer.

“This is very, very important to me,” he says. “It’s one of the steps to getting me where I want to go - to the Paralympics in Australia in 2000.”

Neil’s an eye-catching 20-year-old with Andre Agassi looks and Dan Jansen drive. His body responds to sports as innately as it pumps blood. He’s a natural, and coaches have always noticed.

He hurdled and sprinted in high school track. He wrestled. Colleges offered him football and track scholarships.

Neil took time off after his 1994 graduation to repair the shoulder he’d injured. He wanted to hit college in top form. Instead, he crashed.

The friend who was driving the car in which Neil was a passenger fell asleep. The car careened into a parked semitruck on state Highway 41 four blocks from Neil’s Rathdrum home.

Neil’s neck and some vertebrae were broken. Doctors patched him with bone from his hip and a metal plate. He spent a month at Kootenai Medical Center, then three months at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane.

When he arrived at St. Luke’s, Neil couldn’t sit up or feed himself. He had to wear four life jackets for pool therapy. But he never doubted he’d heal. He doesn’t know why.

“Everyone handles it differently,” he says. “That’s why I want to help other people in this situation. A lot of people aren’t as fortunate as I am.”

He left rehab in January 1995 with no muscle movement below his chest. His biceps and deltoids moved his arms, but his hands didn’t work.

Still, he didn’t hesitate a week later when therapist Teresa Skinner asked him to join St. Luke’s new quadriplegic rugby team, the Dukes of St. Luke’s.

“I was just excited beyond all belief to have a ball back,” Neil says.

Rugby is the fastest-growing quad sport in the world. Teresa started St. Luke’s team to give a competitive outlet to a patient bent on destruction. It revived his spirit and the spirit of every other player.

“They’re forced into situations where they have to adapt,” she says. “If they stay at home, they don’t get challenged. These guys become independent fast.”

For quad rugby, every player’s muscle ability is tested and rated from .5 to 3.5. Neil is .5, the most severely injured. Each team is allowed four players on the court. The ratings of those players can’t add up to more than 8.

The game is played on a basketball court with a volleyball. Teams score when one person crosses the goal line with the ball and at least two wheels of his chair.

“I fell in love with it right away,” Neil says. “It was like football - a fast-moving, hard-hitting, aggressive sport.”

It also spotlighted vital, athletic men in wheelchairs, which Neil needed to see after weeks in hospital hallways filled with seniors in wheelchairs.

Neil was assigned to defend ball carriers on his team and stop ball carriers on opposing teams. At first, he hated his position.

“All my life, I was the one scoring goals, getting all the glory,” he says. “It was hard to go from 18 years of doing one thing into a different role.”

As his strength grew, he began to appreciate his job. His teammates couldn’t score without him. His competitive spirit rose to the challenge.

“I wanted to reach the level in rugby that I’d reached in every other sport I’d played,” he says.

Neil practiced with the Dukes six hours a week. He studied videotapes of games. He lifted weights. He rolled the Centennial Trail, sprinting, climbing, always pushing himself.

Tournaments took the Dukes to Seattle, California, Texas and Florida. Neil’s trophies piled up as teammates and competitors repeatedly voted him the game’s top blocker.

He was one of 12 players nationwide and the youngest chosen for the national team last month. He knew life would work out as long as it included sports.

“I want to be the best,” he says, with a heart-melting grin. “I’m not sure where I’ll finish my education, but it will have to be somewhere where rugby is big. I have to have rugby.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: Neil needs to raise $1,500 for his two-week rugby tour in Australia and New Zealand. Global Credit Union is accepting donations to the U.S. Rugby for Neil fund.