These Warriors Don’t
Like Losing Either
By Mark Oprea
from narratively.comA
ll athletes want to inspire,
be it with a game-winning
homer, a diving catch, or a
no-hitter. The 33 men and
two women who play on the
Warriors softball team are no differ-
ent. They just have less to work with.
The Warriors—whose full name
is the Wounded Warrior Amputee
Softball Team—are a traveling col-
lective of veterans from around the
country. They all have different
wounds—missing legs, arms, eyes—
but they share a mission: shattering
preconceptions, in themselves as
well as in the crowd. “All of us were
injured,” says Cody Rice, a 33-year-oldoutfielder and former airborne infan-
try squad leader who lost his right leg
to a mine in Afghanistan. “We didn’t
think we’d be able to do normal things
again. But you get on the team and
you realize that there’s nothing hold-
ing you back except yourself.”
The only thing holding the team
back on this weekend in July 2017 is
a nasty losing streak. The Warriors
play about 80 games a year, all against
able-bodied teams, and they just lost
all four at a tournament in Minnesota.
They’re looking to get back on track
as they walk into Canal Park in Akron,
Ohio, to play against a team of local
celebrities led by the city’s mayor.
The Warriors have a lust for life
on and off the field. Prior to game
time, Rice, from Newark, Ohio,
banters with teammate Josh Wege
(“No leg-y Wege,” as Rice calls him)
in the dugout. Seated nearby and
cleaning off her bat-
attachable prosthetic
arm is Danielle Green
from South Bend, In-
diana. “All this is very,
very therapeutic,” she
says. “It’s all about,
‘Let’s see what I can do,
how high I can take it.’”
Green’s first love was
basketball. She played
guard for the Univer-
sity of Notre Dame in
the mid-’90s and went
on to enlist in the Army
in 2003. A year later,The Warriors prepping in the dugout. Sports and camaraderie
“are now what give my life fulfillment,” says a team member.
70 june 2019
Reader’s Digest
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