A 23-year-old Chicago area native is finding life in the lakeshore area to his liking while following his passion of Wheelchair Basketball.
Kyle Gribble was diagnosed at the age of 2 with Blount’s disease, or tibia vara after his parents noticed something wrong with his legs. He explained to SeehaferNews.com that the disease “makes you go severely bowlegged.” Gribble said he has had 10 or so surgeries to correct the problem, which has kept him off his feet, requiring him to use a wheelchair to compete.
During the interview at the Manitowoc-Two Rivers YMCA, where Kyle works out, he explained that he started playing wheelchair basketball while he was in Shriners Hospital in Chicago. “I never thought it was a real sport,” he said. “They eventually got me onto a team when I was 11 years old, and I have been playing ever since.”
Gribble says he attended his first camp for the sport at UW-Whitewater when he was 12, and knew at that moment that he wanted to go to that college to advance his academic and athletic career. “I got recruited to go to a whole bunch of different colleges. I had some full-ride scholarship opportunities to go to some big D-1 schools, but ultimately I turned that down to go to a small little D3 school in Wisconsin…They are kinda like the Duke of wheelchair basketball.”
Kyle met his wife, the former Candice Kruckeberg of Manitowoc there & they recently celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary. They relocated here from Crystal Lake, Illinois. He was part of 2 national championship teams for the Warhawks then, tragedy struck the family when his father passed away causing him to take some time off from the sport he loves, to focus on school.
Kyle said he was very proud to have played under Coach Jeremy Lade, who is now his teammate on a traveling Wisconsin team. Kyle called him “the greatest coach of all time.”
Kyle Gribble has earned a Gold medal for a 23-and-under team in Argentina to qualify for the World Championships in Toronto. He’s also competed in Paralympics competition in Track & Field with the shotput, discus, and javelin.
Gribble says “having Adaptive Sports enter my life has been a huge change and allows me to compete with people on an equal level, it’s almost like having my legs back. The fact I can have this piece of equipment to use for mobility it’s awesome to compete with my friends and stay active.”
