Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Paralysis Recovery in the UM Weight Room



Brock Mealer was hurt in a Christmas Eve 2007 car accident which killed his father, separated the shoulder of his brother Elliott, a UM offensive lineman recruit, and left him paralyzed from the waist down. The UM football staff promised to save Elliott's scholarship, and to help however they could in Brock's difficult recovery. Enter Mike Barwis, UM's gravelly voiced, crazy lunatic strength and conditioning coach. He and Brock have been working together two days a week since November on standing, weights, and assisted walking, and as you can tell from the video above, he's made tremendous progress.

Brock will lead the UM team through the tunnel and out onto the field before the first game vs. UConn this fall. Inspiring stuff.

2 comments:

  1. Cam
    You & Brock both need to be proud of your hard work the past 2 1/2-3 years. You need to share each others success. I liked the Vegas photo. Nat has been busy working @ the golf course & now completing her Literature summer 3 week class. I don't think she cares for this class but is managing to study to get through the class. She is helping a friend of ours get ready for their son's graduation party next Saturday. She has actually been assisting with planting flowers & is enjoying this task. I dislike outside work very much & do not have flowers. Too many bugs - snakes - dirt, etc. for me. Never been dirty & too old to start now. My neighbor & I were just laughing this evening about the neighbors threatening me when I was a kid to throw me in a mud puddle. This would cause tears for me more than once. Nat is also assisting with scrap books - photo albums which she is very talented when it comes to putting scrapbooks together. Glad she is helping them out with this special day.
    Hope the Young family is doing great. Take care & continue with your therapy success. I found the cookie cutter my mom used to make Bo's homemade treats. I now have her kitchen cabinets cleaned & everything has been washed & organized. I have had several tears completing this task. Way too many memories seeing her utensils / cookware - serving dishes that were her life as she loved to cook for many people.
    I made an angel food cake for the first time in my life. How sad is this. My mom always did it. Only 1 failure so far in the past year with my cooking experiences. Actually people have been quite shocked with my success. I still don't like to cook.
    Larry's dad continues to suffer with the cancer. Such a nasty disease.
    It won't be long until you & Larry D. celebrate another birthday.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've got to stop reading your blog at work. Ones like this one creep up on me and make me cry all my makeup off. Not cute at 9am. However, absolutely inspiring.

    ReplyDelete