Upper St. Clair adaptive athlete breaking barriers, competing on middle school track team
A middle school student in the Upper St. Clair School District is breaking barriers, believed to be the first junior-high adaptive track athlete in all of western Pennsylvania.
When Holden Schwamberger wants something, he goes after it at full speed.
"Really, just knowing that I can do basically whatever I want as long as I believe in it and I just keep going and I'm determined," he said.
That determination put him on the Fort Couch Track Team, making him the first and right now, only middle school adaptive track athlete in Western Pennsylvania.
"It's really just nerve-racking, I'm the first one doing it, so you really just got to be brave," he said.
It's that courage that makes the 14-year-old truly unstoppable - just ask his dad.
"The thing that I'm proud of the most is that he doesn't really use his disability as an excuse," Chris Schwamberger said. "He just goes and if he sees something he wants to do, he just goes after it, so he finds a way to do it."
Holden was born with a condition that affects both of his legs and prevents him from being able to walk, but it's certainly never stopped him. Even when he was just 10 months old, he was on the go, and he certainly hasn't slowed down since.
Now, he's playing all sorts of adaptive sports, including sled hockey and basketball.
"He's definitely competitive," Chris said. "Everything we do at home is some sort of competition. Just throwing away garbage in the trash can become a basketball event for us at home."
His parents credit a local non-profit called Rise Again for helping their son feel more at home on the track. The organization helps to give adaptive athletes what they need to participate and that's how Holden got his special racing chair and how kids just like him got someone to look up to.
"I just hope people see me as a role model and want to join the sport and get it more popular," he said.
Right now, because he's the one and only, he is his own biggest competition. He's also the biggest believer in himself.
"I'm just going to do this and if you like it, you like it, but if you don't, I'm still going to be doing it," he said.
So, just don't get in his way.