The power of sport to heal and transform: Nasif’s story

_“I was born with my left leg broken. It was also drastically shorter than my right. I remember being in kindergarten and everyone was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, but my prosthetic didn’t let me cross my legs. So there I was, the only one in the whole class with one leg awkwardly jutting out.

As I got older, my prosthetics got better. My left leg was still a good nine inches shorter than my right, but I could cross my legs, I could run, I could jump. I’d always loved sports, but I’d never thought of myself as athletic. Once I had the right prosthetics, though, it turned out I was much more athletic than I’d realized.

By grade 11, I was a libero on the high school volleyball team, representing the Toronto District School Board in triple-A competition at OFSAA. I’d worn sweatpants to the tryouts, and the coach hadn’t even realized I was disabled until I showed up to our first tournament in shorts with my prosthetic leg on full display. Sports became a huge part of my life, and competing as an equal in able-bodied sports made me feel a lot less different.

That’s probably why I came to parasport so late. I’d been approached about competing in sitting volleyball, but I was reluctant. There was still part of me that thought parasport was what you did if you couldn’t do ‘regular’ sport. Finally, when I was 17, I decided to give sitting volleyball a chance, and I learned straight away that it’s a whole new sport. I was hooked. Within a year, I was on the Canadian men’s sitting volleyball team, travelling internationally to major competitions.

From there, I branched out into wheelchair basketball, which was a big learning experience because I basically never use a wheelchair in my daily life. It has been incredible for me, though. I’ve met so many cool and talented people, some with much more severe disabilities than my own, and also a bunch of able-bodied people who have devoted their lives to parasport. I’ll be heading down to the States in the fall to do an MBA in sports business at Auburn University. I hope to return to Canada afterwards and help further evolve the parasport community here.”