Tackling Every Challenge

On an autumn day in 1991, former professional football player Mike Utley sustained an injury that would, in many ways, change his life.

But in many ways it wouldn't.

The same drive and determination that led him to compete that day with the Detroit Lions against the Los Angeles Rams — in a game in which his sixth and seventh vertebrae would be fractured, rendering him a quadriplegic — is still with him today in his ambition both to maintain an active lifestyle and to help fund research for spinal cord injuries.

“I strive to win at everything I do,” Utley says, and history certainly validates that claim: a scholarship to Washington State University in 1987, All American honors, starting guard his rookie year with the Lions. And since the injury, an even more remarkable journey has resulted in an astonishing degree of self-sufficiency at his daily morning routine, as well as other activities like weightlifting, handcycling, scuba diving, practicing martial arts and driving his speedboat.

“I'm able to do these things because I've earned it, I've pushed myself,” Utley says. “People don't realize when they see me now that I didn't start this way. I didn't sit this way, and my lung capacity wasn't even close to what it is now. You've got to earn it every single day.”

Utley's self-sufficiency has made him the subject of numerous television shows. And recently, as the epitome of the company's “Yes, You Can” slogan, he was the recipient of an Invacare-sponsored trip to Super Bowl XL in Detroit.

“I want a great game,” Utley said, preparing for press conferences a few days beforehand. Born and raised in South Seattle, he was pulling for the Seahawks.

He still loves the game; despite his injury, Utley says he made the decision to play and is simply dealing with the consequences of that decision.

“People always ask me if I went through a depression stage,” he says. “No, I didn't. People ask me if I have accepted this injury. The answer is no. I deal with it on a daily basis.”

Utley approaches his injury the same way he approached, say, a charging, 350-pound defensive lineman going after former Lions quarterback Erik Kramer: he assesses the situation and then confronts it, head-on.

From the very start, he concluded that a negative outlook would only be counterproductive. So he made the decision that his attitude would remain optimistic.