Shawn Maloney, USA Lacrosse's Mountain Regional Manager, joined the disabled community after he broke his back in a hiking accident. That incident began his journey to Adaptive Lacrosse.
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It was a little after midnight and Shawn Maloney was face down in the sand along the remote bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. He was injured and he couldn’t move.
“It wasn’t the best decision I ever made,” Maloney says of his impulse to go hiking by moonlight with two other friends on an April night in 2015. “It’s usually pretty safe, unless you decide to go out and do it at midnight. We were knuckleheads.”
Maloney, 29 at the time, had just fallen over 20 feet, and all he could feel as he lay motionless was pain. Excruciating pain.
“I don’t remember the fall, but I remember being on the ground,” Maloney said. “I was conscious, and I knew immediately that something was wrong. I found out later that I had broken two vertebrae in my back and had crushed my spinal cord.”
Once helped arrive, a medevac helicopter transported him to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, and within hours, he was in surgery.
“My friends had to call my girlfriend, Mary, who is now my wife, at 3 a.m. and tell her where I was and what had happened,” Maloney said. “She didn’t know what she was walking into.”
After the surgery, Maloney couldn’t feel or move anything from his waist down. The doctors told him he had incurred a T10-level spinal cord injury, and permanent paralysis was a very real possibility.
“They usually under-promise,” Maloney said. “They tell you, pretty bluntly, that the chances of you walking again are slim. You’ve got to learn how to live life in a wheelchair. It’s overwhelming news and your emotions are all over the place.”
Maloney’s recovery began with a week in the ICU after the surgery. He was then transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Vallejo, where he remained for about one month while learning how to transfer in and out of a wheelchair, how to get himself dressed, how to go to the bathroom and take a shower. Basically, all the basic skills of daily living.
“It’s an absolute grind,” Maloney said. “Just the process of getting out of bed and getting yourself ready to go to the therapy is exhausting.”
While there were no guarantees, therapists told Maloney that the first 12-18 months would be critical in his recovery. His injury had been classified as incomplete, which meant that he had some level of sensation or movement, and he could potentially regain more.
That didn’t mean that Maloney would definitely walk again, but the fact that he had been able to wiggle his big right toe while still in the ICU provided confirmation that there was a signal getting through. He had hope.
“That’s the sliver that you hang onto,” Maloney said. “It’s also motivation to push as hard as you can.”
Maloney looks back now and points to his mindset and training as an athlete as a great asset through the grueling physical therapy sessions. Mental toughness was needed like never before.
As a multi-sport athlete while growing up in Walpole, Massachusetts, Maloney had discovered lacrosse in the fifth grade. His love for the game eventually took him westward to play varsity lacrosse for Colorado College. A few years after graduating, he moved to Oakland to start a web design business and he remained active in the game as a youth coach.
“I had five straight weeks of intensive physical therapy when I was first in the hospital and rehab,” said Maloney. “There were people I saw who had already lost the game mentally. And there were also some who served as amazing mentors, showing me that I could still have a full and enjoyable life. Accepting that some things will be different is the first step.”
This is also where the lacrosse community rallied to Maloney’s side. He received game shorts and uniforms from every team he had ever been involved with, along with new sneakers and other gear.
More incredibly, through the online fundraising platform CrowdRise, over 700 donors helped raise $100,000 to cover Maloney’s medical expenses and rehab costs that insurance didn’t cover.
“These were teammates, friends, family friends, even kids I hadn’t seen since middle school,” Maloney said. “That allowed me to take a break from my job and make rehab my full-time job. Their support gave me a chance to focus on doing PT every day and on improving. Everybody doesn’t get that opportunity.”
During months of non-stop therapy, Maloney began to see remarkable progress. Slowly, but certainly, his strength was returning. He eventually began using a walker and leg braces to take steps. The initial goal was 100 steps a day.
“I was walking, but it was pretty robotic,” Maloney said. Mary would spot him as he walked around their apartment.
“I was fortunate that in a span of about six months, I went from using a wheelchair to a walker and leg braces, then to arm crutches, and then to just using a cane,” Maloney said. “Even with the cane, I was still working hard for every step. And you don’t want to fall because that could re-injure the spine. So, you’re pushing it as far as you can, right to the edge, without going off the edge.”
It was at this point that Maloney also returned to lacrosse, joining Oakland Lacrosse as a youth coach and serving as an assistant at Berkeley High School.
“Coaching was just fun, and an absolute escape. It gave me a chance to focus on something other than myself,” said Maloney, who continued to make strong progress in his recovery during this time.
By 2017, he decided to pursue a new full-time career, and enrolled in a sports coaching graduate program at the University of Denver. He and Mary moved back to Colorado, with Maloney also joining his alma mater, Colorado College, as a volunteer assistant coach.
“At that point, I thought that being a college coach would be the ultimate dream gig,” Maloney said. “But in grad school, I learned more about adaptive sports, which made a lot of sense for me. I’m a person with a disability who is interested in sports. It was almost too clear of a sign.”
Upon graduation in 2019, Maloney joined USA Lacrosse as a regional manager based in Denver, while at the same time becoming active as a volunteer (and participant) with Wheelchair Lacrosse USA. He is now a member of WLUSA’s board of directors, and continues to play competitively for the Colorado Rolling Mammoth.
“I feel like wheelchair lacrosse and adaptive sports is the area where I can potentially make the biggest impact,” said Maloney, who also became a father in 2021. “As someone that has played lacrosse for most of my life, and has a spinal cord injury, and works for the governing body, that’s the area where I feel that I am the best suited. My story is really not that unique; there are tons of athletes with similar stories in WLUSA and they all just want the opportunity to play lacrosse.”
Reflecting on his journey over the past eight years, from that moment on the bluffs in 2015 to now being able to walk again, brings Maloney a strong sense of gratitude.
“It’s a lifelong injury,” said Maloney, who still walks with a limp, deals with chronic pain, and on occasion, still utilizes his cane for support. “I’m never going to get back to 100-percent of what I was, but that’s not the point. I had to change my outlook. I’m grateful for what I’m able to do and pretty lucky just being able to stand up and walk around. You realize life is short, and I want to spend my time doing the things I’m passionate about. Wheelchair lacrosse is what I’m now passionate about.”
