By Lisa Stewart, Santa Clarita Contributor
Mike Shea is a silver medal, Paralympic snowboarder, World Champion and X-Games Competitor from Castaic, Ca. In 2014, he competed in the Sochi Paralympic Winter Games where he and his American teammates swept the medal stand in the snowboard-cross.
In September of 2002, at age 19, Mike’s life changed forever. While wakeboarding with friends at his hometown lake in Castaic, the ski rope wrapped around his ankle and it resulted in the instant amputation of his left leg. The accident was a wake-up call for Mike. Prior to his accident, Mike battled drug and alcohol addiction, and after hitting rock bottom, Mike began his journey to competitive athletics and living a healthy lifestyle.
Mike began training in 2010 after selling all his possessions and moving to the Winter Olympic training facility in Winter Park, Colorado. There he was able to train with some of the best Athletes in the USA. He exploded onto the snowboard scene with 2 podiums and an X-Games Silver medal in adaptive Snowboard-Cross. Today, Mike continues his journey and can be found representing Team USA in the upcoming Winter Paralympics 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Among the many things Mike does to give back to his community, Mike has also joined One Revolution Nametags Educational Assembly Program. A program that uses accomplished Paralympic Athletes to draw on their stories of success in the face of adversity. The assembly program uses the motto, “It’s not what happens to you. It’s what you do with what happens to you,” and teaches students the 4 S’s of Resilience, questions we ask ourselves when things go wrong. We all face challenges. How we address our challenges determines our success. Today, Mike does more with one leg, than he ever did with two!
