Eric grew up in Fort Worth, trying a lot of different sports as a kid. His two favorites were basketball and tennis, starting lessons at the age of five. Freshman year he made varsity, playing both singles and doubles. By the end of high school, he started favoring singles and after graduation he went on to Baylor and played for the club team there and majored in philosophy.
After graduation, Eric thought about pursuing law school, but after preliminary jobs decided to go a different route. He bounced around a little trying to find what he wanted to pursue as a career. He was working for a real estate office in Houston at the age of 25, engaged to his fiancée Darian when one day his life changed forever.
On June 25, 2014, after having lunch with his fiancée, Eric was driving back to work when he started to feel light-headed and dizzy. That was the last thing he remembered. He later heard from onlookers that he pulled off to the highway, made a complete stop, then immediately accelerated and smashed into a concrete pillar. It was discovered that Eric had a seizure and his foot pressed on the gas during the episode.
Eric was rushed to the hospital and sedated for a week to control pain management. He had compound fractures in both legs and right forearm, broke his collarbone, and had a dislocated elbow. Doctors wanted to amputate his right leg, but held off to see what specialists could do to try and save it. Eric had full hopes and intentions on making a full recovery, but after discovering that if he endured five years of surgeries he would only have a 10% chance to walk on it again, he made the decision to opt for amputation.
In September, he underwent surgery for a below knee amputation with the goal to be walking on a prosthetic by his wedding that next January. He accomplished that goal accompanied with a forearm crutch.
At that point, Eric didn’t think he would ever be an athlete again, until one day he attended a dinner where Noah Galloway, retired Army soldier who lost his left arm and left leg in combat spoke. After hearing his message, Eric felt encouraged to get back out there again. Motivated by wanting to keep up with his son as he groups, Eric got back into tennis to get into better shape.
He connected with TAP - an Adaptive Tennis Tournament and played in his first tournament, post-amputation, in 2017. Eric quickly learned that his strategy of remaining stationary and reaching instead did not work. He went back to the drawing board and from then on focused on better mobility and movement on the court. He has competed in the TAP tournament for the past four years (minus last year with Covid) with the next one being this coming December.
Eric is coming to ATF to shake off some of the dust. He is hoping to use the knowledge he gains in the gym to advance his game on the court. His goals are to advance in weight training, improve mobility and find mental cues to help him in competition.
