Lancaster Wows as a Wheelchair Racer

By Adam Wynn | Published in the Barrow County News

Bethlehem Christian Academy’s Collin Lancaster is a special athlete. Not because of his wheelchair, of course, but because of what he can do with it.

Lancaster, a sixth grader who lives in Dacula, is a wheelchair athlete for the BCA track and field team.

On a sunny, but breezy, afternoon at the old Monroe High School track, with facilities now decorated to serve as the high school football field for fictional Mystic Falls out of the television program Vampire Diaries, Lancaster took several laps around the track.

While Lancaster’s teammates on the BCA track team practice and improve their performances with the full use of their bodies, Lancaster shows an equal or greater dedication to practice and improvement.

“Usually when I show up to practice, Coach [Steve] Green will give me a list of what to do. Then on days when he works with the middle school, I’ll start by doing a few laps, I’ll usually do a warm-up lap and then a few 100s and 400s,” Lancaster explained. “In all, I usually do about two miles a day.”

Lancaster has shown flashes of excellence so far this season, dropping nearly a minute off of his already stellar mile time.

At Trinity Christian in Sharpsburg, Lancaster finished a mile in 5:29. Lancaster bested his previous personal record by more than 40 seconds.

“It was a great track,” the humble Lancaster said. “It was a great track with no holes, and it was an asphalt track, not a rubber track. Asphalt tracks are faster than rubber. It was a better material to roll on and I just had a really good day.”

Lancaster is the only wheelchair athlete at BCA and one of the few in the state of Georgia. Finding him competition has perhaps been the hardest challenge for Green.

The lack of a competitor has in no way kept Lancaster from striving to beat his competition: himself.

“I always feel like there’s a ghost beside me and I’m trying to beat him,” Lancaster acknowledged, using a popular video game term for racing against someone’s own time. “He’s a little faster than me, but I always edge him off as if he were there.”

Then again, the fact that no schools have competing athletes to face BCA makes his performances at meets unique in that everyone there wants to see him succeed.

“All the kids were cheering for me and the announcers told people what I was doing. Everyone was yelling and screaming and pushing me to go harder, so I just took that and did the best I could,” Lancaster said of the day he completed his new personal best mile time.

The top time in Georgia last year was more than six minutes, and that was from a high school senior.

For his first year of middle school track, Lancaster is already making waves in the state.

Lancaster is no stranger to athletics, though. In the last several years, he has participated with Blaze Sports in Atlanta and has done several different events with them.

Lancaster’s connection to Blaze Sports is what got him into track and field. He started in basketball after a family friend, who is a coach with Blaze Sports, convinced him to give it a try.

Lancaster’s Blaze Sports basketball team has won four national titles and is working on their fifth.

“When you go from a place where you can barely score a basket and now you’re shooting threes, you’ve come a long way,” Lancaster said.

After basketball, the coaches at Blaze thought Lancaster would be a great fit for track and field. Turns out they were right.

A few years later, Lancaster now competes in basketball, track and field and archery, just to name a few of the sports he enjoys.

His favorite, Lancaster admits, is basketball.

“Basketball and track are my two favorite sports,” Lancaster said. “I’ve got to say, basketball is my favorite. They’re both great sports, but basketball is a better team sport. You’re working together to get the ball in the hoop. [Track] is a team sport, but you’re not doing the same thing as your teammates.”

Then again, Lancaster comes from an athletic family. His brother plays football year-round while both of his parents participate in adult leagues.

“We’ve been a multi-sport family. Each of us has played more than one sport,” Lancaster stated.

And his exposure to Blaze Sports and athletics has allowed Lancaster to travel all over the country to see some incredible things and compete against the best.

“I’ve been to 26 states and most of them have been for sports,” Lancaster said. “I’ve been to New York. It was awesome to walk through. Colorado was cool to see.

“My great aunt lives in Colorado and they own a mountain, so we got to go up to the top of the mountain and we got to see the whole city below. And that was a basketball tournament,” Lancaster added. “When we got there, they were dealing with a moose. There were two moose in the backyard and they were trying to get it out of there.”

When they travel in the summer, Lancaster and his family always try to reach a baseball game. They are trying to reach all 32 Major League Baseball parks. So far they have seen eight.

Lancaster is an incredibly well-spoken young man, showing more confidence in a formal interview than most of his peers, and no topic seems too difficult for Lancaster to talk about.

Even when conversation inevitably turns to the accident that cost Lancaster the use of his legs, the young man will talk in stride and explain exactly what happened with an attitude that displays immense maturity.

“I was in a car accident when I was 5,” Lancaster said matter of factly. “I was on my way to the zoo to meet my aunt, it was President’s Day 2009, and we ran into a truck.

“It has been tough. It’s hard to roll in the grass, so when I see other kids running in the grass I see it as how they can run and I can’t. But then there are days where they’re stuck in school and I’m off at a basketball tournament somewhere, so I have my own advantages in a wheelchair,” Lancaster added.

Lancaster’s mature and positive attitude about his disability is a large part of why he competes in so many events and succeeds in most all of them. That, and a large degree of dedication and talent.

“I just want to improve as a person and grow to be a better man. I want to get to know these kids I’m competing with on my team...and just to go out there and get better each day. Good or bad track, I want to give 110 percent,” Lancaster said.

Teenagers and children in today’s culture are constantly bombarded with conflicting messages of enjoying technology that makes life easier versus getting outside and staying physically active.

Even in a wheelchair, staying active has never been a problem for Lancaster.

“I think it’s so important to stay active instead of sitting with your face glued to a TV screen 24-7,” Lancaster said. “Sports have been a huge part of my life.”