Shaun Castle

Medically-retired Army Sergeant, Shaun Castle, is an accomplished college and professional wheelchair basketball player and outspoken advocate for Paralyzed Veterans of America. In 2003, Castle was injured during training in which he suffered three herniated discs and two cracked vertebrae, leaving the career-hopeful Army soldier a paraplegic. While a lengthy prosthetics surgery enabled him to walk again and return to private sector police work, the weight of his duty belt over time caused further damage to his spinal cord. His second surgery was unsuccessful, leaving him a paraplegic once again. In 2012, Castle embraced the healing power of adaptive sports. He began training six days a week and became a team member of the University of Alabama’s men’s wheelchair basketball team. Castle went on to play professional wheelchair basketball in Lyon, France and is a Paralympic hopeful for the 2020 Games in Tokyo, Japan. In 2018 Shaun continued to inspire as he spent his first full year as Deputy Executive Director of Paralyzed Veterans of America in Washington, DC.