"We just don't know if it's possible" - Hunter Woodhall recalls college coaches' hesitation to offer him scholarship despite winning state title

Paralympic track-and-field athlete Hunter Woodhall made a mark with his first gold medal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. Woodhall, who has become one of the best Paralympic athletes, recently shed light on the challenges he faced regarding college opportunities.

Woodhall has successfully secured five Paralympic accolades, including three bronze, and one silver medal apart from the gold he picked up in the men's 400m event at the 2024 Summer Paralympics. He attended Syracuse High School and then achieved an NCAA Division I scholarship, becoming the first double amputee to do so. During the “Tara and Hunter” segment of “Life changed a lot since the Olympics”, Woodhall talked about the inadequate offers he faced from the Universities.

“I remember like working so hard in high school just to complete that goal and then when I got to my senior year, I won a state championship, I broke the state record, and I don't have a single college calling me. No one was calling me, it was mind-blowing so we got in contact with a few people,” he recalled [23:34 onwards].

Hunter Woodhall further continued:

“We started calling these coaches and say like why, why can't you recruit this and the answer was like, 'We just don't know if it's possible, we don't know it's never been done. We don't know if anybody would even allow it.' I still had to go through appeals and all of these different things. In the end, University of Arkansas said, 'You know we're going to commit a scholarship to you and take a risk' and it worked out.” [23:52 onwards]

The two-time World Championships silver medallist's Division I athletic scholarship with the University of Arkansas was one of the stepping stones to his rising prominence in the history of track and field.

Hunter Woodhall explores his first experience and breaking barriers with running blades

Hunter Woodhall at the Para Athletics - Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games: Day 9 - Source: Getty

Hunter Woodhall, a three-time All-American in the long relay category, talked about how he ran with walking prosthetics earlier and how his life changed after getting the running blades. In an interview with Risingphxglobal, he revealed how he felt with his first pair.

"I asked my prosthetist, like is there anything we could do to spice this up a little bit? They suggested, hey let's try to make a running blade. And I remember the first day putting on these running blades. It was just so much easier to run, it didn't feel like a burden, it didn't hurt to run, it wasn't so heavy. It felt easy, it felt free.” [0:30 onwards]

Hunter Woodhall, who learned to run with his family, also shed light upon earlier prosthetics which were “stiff” as they did not have enough room for flexibility. He shared that running in blades was "wild" and compared his earlier prosthetics to a “medical boot”. Further sharing that running in them was “pretty tough”.

The athlete started following his passion in track events from an early age and his first international competition came in 2014. He went on to achieve incredible success in his ongoing track career including two medals in IPC Athletics World Championships.