The Good Men Project Sports’ new feature, Doing It Right, highlights athletes that give back and make a difference in our society. This week our International Sports Editor David Packman looks at Australian paralympian Dylan Alcott.
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In the lead-up to the Australian Open this year, paralympian and bon vivant Dylan Alcott played tennis in his wheelchair for 24 hours straight for the Starlight Foundation and Variety Children’s Charity, raising over $100,000.
He called the experience “brutal” but for those who know the affable 24-year-old with the incredible zest for life, it’s clear he wouldn’t have it any other way. “20 hours in, I looked down at my wrist and it was four times the size,” he said. “It was killing me at the end.”
But nothing would stop Alcott – according to him it was merely mind over matter. “I was born with a tumour on my spinal cord” he said. “Starlight and Variety; they really saved my life when I was a kid. Variety gave me my first wheelchair, Starlight gave my family and I a wish to go away when we needed it most.”
I did it #dylans24tennis pic.twitter.com/U4Go22xYw5
— Dylan Alcott (@DylanAlcott) December 11, 2014
The definition of a dream come true. 2015 @AustralianOpen Champion baby!!! pic.twitter.com/xFPLobonLS — Dylan Alcott (@DylanAlcott) January 31, 2015
Having a good time is also high on the Alcott agenda and he recalls an experience he had in the days between his 24-hour tennis marathon and the beginning of the Australian Open.
Still “in a world of pain” but as a reward to himself, he travelled to the nearby Meredith Music Festival, where he found himself crowd-surfing in his wheelchair – a regular occurrence for him and something he has become world famous for – from 60 yards back, only to end up on stage performing a verse from Protect Ya Neck with New York rapper Ghostface Killah and the Wu-Tang Clan.
“When I play in the US Open this year, him and the whole Wu Tang Clan are going to come down and watch. Can you imagine? My coach, my girlfriend and the whole Wu Tang Clan in my box!” Alcott said.
“They are my favourite artists of all time. They’re it for me. The song that I rapped is the last song that I listen to every time I go on court.”
With a growing fan base — and amassing an array of influential friends from the worlds of sport and music — Alcott remains a larger than life character both on and off the field, and he knows the importance of his voice in challenging the parameters for people with disabilities.
As he told the ABC: “If I could take a magic pill that would mean I’m not in a wheelchair anymore, you couldn’t pay me enough to take it — the Dylan in the wheelchair is the same as the Dylan without it.”
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