jenny meahan / THE CURRENT On Thursday, Mark Zupan, the star of the documentary “Murderball,” spoke to students in the MSC Century Rooms at 7 p.m.
The Oscar nominated documentary “Murderball” follows the U.S. Quad rugby team from the 2002 Paralympic games in Sweden to the 2004 games in Athens, giving an inside look at the players lives. Last Thursday, University of Missouri-St. Louis students gathered in the Millennium Student Center to sit in on a conversation with 2008 U.S. team Gold Paralympian, and documentary star Mark Zupan, who has been living as a quadriplegic for 17 years.
The crowd in attendance was present for various reasons. For one audience member, the film had inspired him to pick up the sport. “Right after I got hurt, I saw the film and I checked out a team in St. Louis,” Mike Schamburg, graduate, criminal justice, said.
Another guest was present for an educational purpose. “I am actually not familiar with him at all, but I am in a class right now where it is a requirement to go out into the community and go to events that involve the special need,” Olivia Monroe, sophomore, elementary, said. “One of my uncles does wheelchair basketball, so this is interesting.”
Without hesitation, Zupan humored the audience with his dilemma in clothing choice. Apparently, he honored our crowd by wearing pants as oppose to his usual pair of shorts.
He began telling the audience of October 14, 1993, the day that changed his life forever. After his soccer team had just won a game in South Florida, he and his friend went to a bar to celebrate. Intoxicated, his friend drove off in his pick up truck with Zupan lying in the back, got in a collision, and Zupan’s body was flung into a canal where he clung to a branch paralyzed for around 13 hours. The man who found him could only see the top of his head and arm.
“Imagine being 18 and having the burden of breaking your friend’s neck,” Zupan said.
He reflected back to his time in the hospital: sponge baths with his male nurse, his first day out in a wheel chair on Halloween with cat woman, and the man at Gap who thought he was pretending. He believed that after three months in rehab, the worst day was coming out of rehab. For him, traveling was no longer from point A to B.
When he enrolled in Georgia Tech for engineering is when he got involved with rugby. He became a part of the U.S team in 1997. Eventually, the creators of “Murderball” found their team; the film succeeded at Sundance and turned them into celebrities
When asked about future plans after Rugby, which may be coming up soon, he already had a plan in action. “I will be working on making ‘Zupan Can,’ a good television show,” he said. “Zupan Can” is a television show he is working on with MTV.
Till this day, Zupan has no regrets about his injury because he believes that it, along with his family’s support, is what made him the man he is today. If the incident never happened he would have never gone to the Olympics, attended the Academy Awards, or met the celebrities that he has. His advice to the younger generation living with impairment: “Dream big, follow your dreams. Do not let anyone keep you from doing your dream.”
Zupan closed the event conversing among the students and signing autographs. He really was just an ordinary guy, with an amazing story.