At Kappa Sigma's 2008 holiday party, Dan Hefley glides to the front of the room in his wheelchair to receive a gag gift from his new fraternity brothers. The present he unwraps is a Skip-It, the kind of ankle jump rope that youngsters hop over repeatedly to earn ever-higher scores.
The freshman engineering major just laughs as he holds the toy in his hands—his strong, broad shoulders shaking with mirth and his eyes shining playfully behind his glasses. Unless he adds a little bounce to his wheelchair or gets a lift from a few Kap Sigs, he will not be counting skips anytime soon. Hefley has spina bifida, a congenital spine defect that has left the lower half of his body paralyzed and limits his mobility to a wheelchair or crutches.
"My friends know I'm the one who jokes about it the most," he says, referring to his disability. "To everyone else, I know it's part of my identity. I don't think I'm any different because of it."
That has been his attitude for quite a while. Born and raised just outside of Pittsburgh, Hefley started playing sled hockey with the Pittsburgh Mighty Penguins in seventh grade, encouraged by a family doctor who noticed his athleticism. Sled hockey is much like regular ice hockey except that players sit in plastic seats on skate blades from which they maneuver the ice using two sticks, their blades uniquely curved for shooting and outfitted with metal picks to shunt across the ice.
Hefley has been chosen twice for the U.S. National Under-20 Sled Hockey Team—as a goaltender—most recently for the 2008-2009 lineup. The team represents the nation in the Western Sled Hockey League and at the National Disabled Hockey Festival.
—Maja Orsic (HS'10)
