Christian Canadian Sports Magazine

Former Athlete Sue Stewart Overcomes Personal Tragedy
By SCOTT RADLEY

Modesty prevents her from telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But the medals and trophies above her desk do it for her.

Once upon a time, Sue Stewart was one of the best players in Canadian women’s basketball. She could do it all on the court, and she usually did. She once poured in 40 points in a high school game. She led Laurentian University to back-to-back national championships earning a Canadian MVP trophy along the way. She played pro in Europe. And she played for this country in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

“They are definitely happy memories,” the woman who modeled her style of play after Magic Johnson says. “They’ve come and gone so quickly.”

Yeah, gone. Even though she’s only 38, her days as a player are in the past because of a life-changing moment three years ago.

While attending Malone College in Canton, Ohio – just a short jog from the pro football hall of fame – for a Masters of Arts degree in Christian Ministries, she was coaching two teams. One night after a game, she slipped in the shower and whacked her head on the shower head. It hurt like heck but she shook it off and went on with her business.
“I never thought anything of it,” she says.

Until a few days later, when she fell again. This time she went backwards and much, much harder, cracking the back of her head on the soap dish.

In a moment, this healthy, vibrant, athletic young woman had been reduced to a paraplegic whose life literally hung in the balance. The stroke she’d suffered shut down her ability to speak. Her left side was paralysed. Doctors worried that if they didn’t operate she’d die. But they were equally concerned that operating would be fatal, too.

Against the odds – and with dozens of people on both sides of the border praying for her – she survived and then got well enough to return home in Mississauga to begin rehabilitation. Things weren’t great physically though. The trauma to her brain had done massive damage. Just getting back on her feet was going to be an accomplishment.
That’s when the competitive spirit honed in gyms over years and years kicked in. Going from being able to do anything to essentially being close to helpless made for a whole lot of long days. Several times she decided the effort was too much and the work to get back was too hard. But convincing herself that re-learning to walk was no different than learning a new skill on the court kept her going.  That and her unwavering faith.
And after just two-and-a-half months, she did what nobody thought was possible.

“I came in a wheelchair and walked out on a cane,” she says, in a voice that’s strong and understandable but still bears the slurry scar of the stroke.

The mental challenges persisted though. Stewart says anyone who goes through what she does and doesn’t ask ‘Why me?’ is lying. Fact is, she still doesn’t know but she believes it’s part of God’s plan for her life. A part she’ll understand someday.

But if she believes everything happens for a purpose – meaning this was supposed to happen rather than some unplanned misfortune that found her out of all the potential candidates walking the earth – can she somehow be happy this all happened?
“I’m not there yet, but I hope I get there at some point,” she says. “This is part of God preparing me for the mission field.”

For now, basketball has taken a back seat to the rest of her life. She’s still working on getting better and has set her sights on someday being able to run again.
In the meantime, the Christian ministry for which she was preparing at college has become pretty darn real. She now has a whole new level of empathy for folks who are suffering and struggling with life.

Maybe it’s part of that answer she’s waiting for.

“I went to Malone to do the theory but I left with the practical,” she says. “I have to believe and trust God he brought me through this and now I have to live it.”

Scott Radley is a sports columnist with The Hamilton Spectator.