The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: LINDY DUGGER Lindsay Grogan, a sophomore, practices at the Ramsey Center Tuesday before leaving Wednesday morning for Minneapolis to compete for a spot on the U.S. Paralympic team. Grogan battles a disabling autoimmune disease. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: LINDY DUGGER University sophomore Lindsay Grogan competes today in Minneapolis for a spot on the U.S. Paralympic team, something she has dreamed about since high school. She has competed at various national meets. [Click to enlarge]

For one University student, the U.S. Paralympics team trials held in Minneapolis today could start her on the road to Beijing.

Lindsay Grogan, a sophomore from Macon, will compete in seven events at the University of Minnesota in the next three days in hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Paralympic team.

Trials are held every four years to pick the U.S. Paralympics team. The Paralympic Games follow the Olympics Games at the same venues and facilities.

Grogan, who has dreamed of making the team since high school, began swimming at age 7 in her hometown after undergoing surgery for a prosthetic leg.

Grogan battles scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes deposits of collagen in the skin and organs. While disabling, it tends not to be fatal.

She was diagnosed with scleroderma at age 2 and wore casts until her surgery. She began swimming with the Macon Waves club team and in high school joined the Georgia Blazers, a state team for disabled children.

Grogan doesn't swim with a prosthetic leg, and coaches said they don't think her disability wholly affects her athletics.

"She's a great person and really hard worker," Jonathan Foggin, head age group coach of the Athens Bulldog Swim Club, said Wednesday. "[Grogan] works as a part of the group. There's not a lot of special accommodations."

Grogan joined the club in January 2007 and practices daily. She traveled to Vancouver, British Colombia, for the Summer Can-Am Championships in July and to the U.S. Paralympics Open Swimming Championships in Maryland in December.

"I didn't place, but it was really neat because those were the first two meets where I had seen more international competition," Grogan said.

Grogan said she attends larger meets to prepare herself for the national trials.

"The meet in Maryland was really big, probably the biggest I've been to so far," she said. "I did really well and dropped a lot of time from the summer."

This week Grogan will compete in the 400-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle, 50-meter freestyle, 200-meter individual medley, 200-meter breaststroke, 100-meter backstroke and 100-meter breaststroke.

"She has tremendously improved in all events, but in particular the breaststroke," Foggin said.

Grogan said if she doesn't make the U.S. Paralympics team, she'll try for the U.S. Paralympics Elite or National Team, which reimburses swimmers for training and travel. Though Grogan always has loved swimming, it took encouragement to get involved in national meets. As a high school senior, Grogan wrote a column for a newspaper about her interest in the national meet. A U.S. Paralympics Committee member contacted her coach and encouraged her to pursue competitions.

Grogan begins her quest today at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center. Prelims are at 9 a.m. CST.

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