Endeavor Games: New lease on life for Oklahoma City fencer Susan Benson
Endeavor Games Wheelchair sport opens up a new world for Susan Benson
RYAN STEWART
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Published: June 14, 2009
Susan Benson thought she was going to die.
She was run over by a car at a drive-in movie theater in
Edmond. She was in shock, but she was aware of everything going on around her.
She couldn’t move. She felt helpless. She was 17 years old.
Benson lost the use her legs as a result of the accident, but now at age 52 she has become an accomplished paralympic athlete in the little-known sport of wheelchair fencing.
Benson’s husband,
Jerry Benson, owns
Redlands Fencing in
Oklahoma City, and he is putting on a clinic at this year’s Endeavor Games in Edmond to train people from around the country in wheelchair fencing and raise awareness about the sport.
What the sport has offered Susan over the past 10 years is something she could only describe as "life-changing.”
"It doesn’t matter how much of a disability you have or how old you are, there are sports for everybody,” she said. "I was so fortunate to find fencing.”
The Oklahoma City native has participated in Paralympic Games in
Athens and
Sydney.
Benson describes herself as "semi-retired,” and now she helps her husband, who she met the night she first started fencing at his center. She trains athletes in her free time to be around the sport that opened up opportunities she said she never could have imagined.
"I didn’t get into anything athletic for years after the accident,” she said. "I really didn’t even know it was an option. I just thought it was all about my head at that point and achieving academically.”
Benson earned a PhD. in speech pathology from
Oklahoma and now works at the
OU Health Science Center.
Fencing gave her another outlet for success after a coworker told her about the program.
"I was just kind of playing around with it and then my coach started to train me. It was during that training I began to see myself as a physical person again,” she said.
Jerry, 63, said when he saw her train for the first time he knew she had potential to be successful because of her intelligence.
"When I saw how quickly she was able to adjust and fix things with her technique that’s when I said, ‘Yep, this is a good fencer,’ ” he said.
Benson said fencing helped her look past her disability and her age to focus on achieving her physical goals to improve her quality of life.
She said one of the main reasons they teach fencing and put on the clinic is to help teach that mentality to disabled people of all ages.
Jerry said what wheelchair fencing did for Susan’s life and what he has seen it do for many of his students is what motivates him to teach.
"It teaches you consequence and how to deal with it,” he said. "Once you learn that you gain confidence. So many people feel sorry for themselves when something goes wrong and look for someone to blame. I think the principles of fencing teach you to overcome that, and Susan is an example of what can be accomplished if you are willing to give the effort to succeed.”
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