A TV voice called to Dr. Lisa Maddox on lazy Saturday afternoons when she was growing up in the 1970s.
“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports — the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat,” said Jim McKay, the Emmy-Award winning sportscaster as he introduced ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
The allure of different sports intrigued a young Maddox and impacted her life. Decades later, Maddox, who lives in Grovetown, Georgia just outside of Augusta, is a world-class wheelchair athlete competing in multiple sports at national and international levels.
In July, she brought home her first gold medal in pickleball in the sport’s debut at the National Veterans Wheelchair games in Portland, Ore. Her softball team narrowly missed out on a bronze medal, but her play at first base drew enough votes to put her on the National Veterans Wheelchair All-Star team at the Wheelchair Softball World Series in August in Chicago.
But it all started with Wide World of Sports and two older brothers she wanted to emulate, she said. Tennis was one of those sports that piqued the siblings’ interest.
“I wanted to play, but there wasn’t anywhere around here to learn. I got involved with other things,” said Maddox, a graduate of Augusta’s Aquinas High School, where she played softball, basketball and with the boy’s baseball team.
After graduating high school, she went to the United States Military Academy West Point, playing basketball her freshman year. A new coach took over her sophomore year, and she decided to fully focus on her dream of becoming a physician instead of continuing with sports.
They would stay on the backburner for about 20 years.
In 2006, she lost her left leg above her knee to Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome. It wasn’t too long before she returned to the sports she’d always loved, but this time from a wheelchair.