Kaitlyn Eaton has been playing wheelchair basketball competitively since she was a teenager. She first joined the Hotwheels basketball team at TIRR Memorial Hermann back in 2010, playing on teams with mostly boys at first. She remembers that her first practice with the Hotwheels wasn't easy, but she decided she wanted to keep coming back.
"I was really, really awful," says Kaitlyn, laughing. "I couldn't hit the rim. I was the weakest player out there. I was so slow. After my first practice, I told my mom, this is what I want to do. I want to go back. Obviously, it stuck."
Kaitlyn has used a wheelchair throughout most of her life. She was born with a condition called sacral agenesis, a rare condition that occurs when the lower part of the spine doesn't develop normally.
"I'm missing my entire sacrum and tailbone, which just causes some muscle power limitations in my lower legs," said Kaitlyn. "I went to school, just like every other kid. There weren't many other people with disabilities within my school system. So I really grew up kind of in an able-bodied world, you could say."
After playing with the Hotwheels basketball team at TIRR, Kaitlyn went on to play wheelchair basketball with the University of Illinois. She made the 2020 U.S. Paralympic Women's Basketball team, competing in Tokyo and earning a bronze medal. Now, she will compete in the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
"It will be my second time at the Paralympic Games," said Katlyn. "Tokyo was such an interesting time for everybody because of COVID. This feels very similar to how somebody would feel going to their first games because, you know, I have family coming, they're going to get to see me compete."
The 2024 Paris Paralympics take place between August 28 - September 9.