Notre Dame freshman David Cowell doesn't let cerebral palsy stop him from competing in a team sport. He throws the shot for the Irish track and field team.A late afternoon breeze brushes lightly through the campus as Notre Dame High School athletes begin fanning out to stretch before splitting into smaller groups to practice their individual events. Sprinters lift their knees high and distance runners jog lightly along the gravel pathway that surrounds the school's football field, stopping to bend and touch their toes or twist their backs to loosen tight muscles.
Standing off just a bit from the others, David Cowell begins his own unique warm-up routine. Born with cerebral palsy, David is physically unable to do many of the same exercises as his track and field teammates, but much as he has throughout his life the freshman has adapted to ensure that while he may have to follow a slightly different path, he will be able to join other kids his age in competing.
His first sport as a child was taekwondo, and to prepare both his upper and lower body to throw the 12-pound shot, David stretches his muscles by thrusting his arms and legs out slowly in a series of punches and kicks against the air. That calls to mind the scene from the movie "Remember the Titans" when the new California quarterback "Sunshine" stands on the school lawn practicing tai chi.
"The first time I saw him going through his routine I thought, 'What the heck is this kid doing?'" said Notre Dame assistant track coach Curt Jones. "Then I realized that he had figured out his own dynamic warm-up to get his body ready for practice.
"He knew he couldn't do what the other kids were doing, but he wasn't going to let his physical limitations prevent him from being a competitor. He'll never stop trying, and that's why he's an inspiration for our entire team."
Athletes were David's heroes growing up, and by the time he was in middle school he wanted to find a team sport in which he could compete, something beyond taekwondo so he could feel more a part of a group.
Last year, as an eighth-grader at OLPH, he was introduced to the shot put event. After a year of learning it, once he transitioned to Notre Dame, he saw it as a way to help him establish an identity at a new school and, most importantly for a teenager, to fit in with his peers.
"I didn't want to be known as that strange kid who walked around weird," David said. "Once I started to compete, being a part of the track team has really helped me be accepted. I'm a part of something and now nobody can say that I'm not an athlete or that I can't play. My teammates see how hard I try and they know if I get knocked down, I'm going to get back up and keep trying."
When he was only 10 months old, David was diagnosed with spastic triplegia cerebral palsy, which means three limbs (both legs and his left arm) are affected by the disease. His vision and depth perception were also weakened, and his most recent surgeries were to insert corrective plates in both knees.
Before he could even walk or understand the hurdles he would face, life had dealt David a tough hand. But two months later things took a turn for the better when Jim and Michelle Cowell adopted him.
"We had struggled ourselves through three miscarriages," said Michelle, now Zickafoose. "Once we decided to adopt and found out about David, we were told during the process that he may never walk and could possibly even be mentally retarded. That was a little nerve-racking to hear.
"But once I saw him, and he was such a smiley, happy baby, I knew right away that I wanted to be his mom. And within the first couple of months we knew he wasn't going to have any mental limitations. Even as a baby he already showed signs of being very bright, and he's proven that now by making all A's and B's in school and being a really sharp kid. It's truly amazing what loving a child and not setting limitations on them can do."
Though now divorced, Michelle and Jim both remain very involved in raising their son. As former athletes themselves, they have encouraged David to find ways of challenging himself physically.
By the time David was in the first grade he had taken six painful rounds of botox injections in his legs to loosen the muscles so that, through physical therapy, he could strengthen his legs. He also had undergone eye surgery to correct the crossed eyes caused by his disease and has undergone spinal surgery followed by countless rounds of physical therapy - two or three per week for several years. Although agonizing at the time, those procedures have helped David reach a point where his upper body now has few limitations and his lower extremities allow him to walk without the aid of crutches, although his weakened balance still causes him to fall often.
Although he's never broken a bone, David has had plenty of bruises and scraped-off layers of skin from falling but admits the worst affect of his slips is the embarrassment.
His weakened balance and tendency to fall also made him an easy target for some mean-spirited peers when he was younger.
"Kids can be cruel," Michelle said. "He was bullied a lot. It's unbelievable how mean some kids can be, but when they figured out he was vulnerable, he would get pushed down and laughed at and made to feel different when he was younger. He went to counseling, but I really think sports and being a part of a team has done more to boost his self-confidence than anything else.
"People see how hard he tries and works at being an athlete, and they respect it. It might not be as pretty as some other athletes, but they see how he pushes himself. Now, whenever he falls, he has instructed me not to help him up. He wants to do it all on his own. He's very independent, and I think a lot of that comes from just his desire to prove that he's tough and that he's like any other kid."
All Notre Dame athletes began conditioning in early January, but David was the only one to make it to all 15 days of workouts. When the track team began running hills for conditioning, Coach Jones told David he could find an alternative exercise.
"He looked at me like he was really ticked off and said, 'What do you mean?'" Jones said with a laugh. "He ran the hills. And later, after he had fallen in the gravel and skinned himself up pretty good, I went back out and saw him all bandaged up and running with some of the other kids."
Between his first varsity throw and his next competition, David improved his personal-best throw by more than five feet. He threw the shot 17.6 feet at his team's last meet and his coaches remember only once that they've had to encourage him.
"There was a day that I stopped running at practice and was kind of moping and Coach Jones could tell something was bothering me," David said. "I was feeling sorry for myself and told him that I was always going to finish last at every competition no matter how hard I tried. But he just looked at me and said, 'So is that going to stop you from competing?' It was exactly what I needed to hear, and I knew I had to get back to work."
When reminded of that day, Jones just shook his head and said, "You see him limping and dragging his feet and every time he reaches down to pick up the shot you think he's going to fall, so you hold your breath. Just for him to be out there takes more guts than just about any kid I've known.
"When our other kids see him doing extra things to get better, it makes them want to work extra hard, too. How can they complain about anything we ask them to do when they see David giving every bit of extra effort he has? There's no quit in David. The kid is fearless."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.