True story: A piece of pie on vacation led to a Paralympian career for Steve Emt, a former Division 1 basketball player at the University of Connecticut.

After being disabled at age 25 as the result of a car accident in 1995, his playing days were over, but Emt stayed involved in sports, coaching high school basketball, and competing as a hand cyclist in the 2010 New York City Marathon.

Emt went on a vacation to Cape Cod in 2014 and went out to get a piece of pie when he ran into Tony Colachhio, a wheelchair volunteer assistant curling coach, in Falmouth, Mass. The two got to talking and one thing led to another. Now, Emt will be competing in the 2022 Beijing Olympics on March 3.

“I had never heard of curling. Never knew it existed. Never thought about the Paralympics until Tony mentioned it,” said Emt, 50, in a Hartford Courant story.  Colachhio told Emt it was a new sport for the Paralympics, and he could travel all over the world.

“I went home and Googled it,” said Emit. “It looked like something I could do. Came back a week later and threw my first stones and just fell in love with it right away.”

Emt has competed in five world championships and at the 2018 Paralympics in South Korea where the USA team was last. Now he will be the vice-skip on the USA team as the only returning Paralympian.

“We could be the best in the world,” said Emt before the world championships on the USA Paralympics’ website. “If we keep doing what we’re doing and staying the same course with a commitment to each other and to the program, we can be the best team in the world.”

“I love that Steve fell in love with a new sport after he couldn’t play basketball,” said Alan Hubbard, NTI’s Chief Operating Officer. “He was given an opportunity, took a chance on something new, and now has made a commitment to curling. I can’t wait to watch him in the Paralympics.” For more than 25 years, NTI, a nonprofit organization, has been helping Americans with disabilities find remote work opportunities with free job training and placement services. You can register for free at www.ntiathome.org.

Emt has shared his story in a book called, “You D.E.C.I.D.E. A 6-Step Action Plan to Becoming the Hero of Your Own Life.”  The message of the book is to look at yourself as your own hero.

At the end of the day, it was up to me,” said Emt, in the Hartford Courant article. “It’s not, ‘You can do this,’ it’s ‘You will do this, you will get through this, and you will be better because of it.’”

(Alan Hubbard is the Chief Operating Officer for NTI, a nonprofit organization. For more than 25 years, NTI has been helping Americans with disabilities and their caregivers find remote work opportunities with free job training and placement services. You can register for free at www.ntiathome.org.)