Wake Forest Athletics
Gold Rush Feature: Still Fighting
5/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
May 23, 2011
This article was originally published in the April 30 edition of Gold Rush.
By Jay Reddick
Some people are inspirational just by their mere existence. Rodney Rogers is one of those people.
But on April 14 in Pugh Auditorium on campus, Rogers inspired a crowd with his words as well as his actions.
Rogers, who lost the use of his arms and legs in a 2008 ATV accident, spoke before an overflow crowd as part of "Losing to Win: Discussions of Race and Intercollegiate Sports," a two-day interdisciplinary symposium.
Even with a raspy voice made a bit weaker by his ordeal, Rogers' customary Durham drawl was still there, along with his familiar easy smile.
The 39-year-old Rogers has made few appearances on campus since becoming a quadriplegic, which made this visit all the more poignant. Several past and present members of the Wake Forest basketball family were there for the speech, including former teammates Trelonnie Owens and Derrick Hicks, former head coach Dave Odom and assistant Jerry Wainwright, and team manager Emily Giffin.
Rogers broke his neck after flipping over the handlebars of an all-terrain vehicle riding through the woods. He spent several months at Atlanta's Shepherd Center, a spinal-cord injury rehabilitation facility, before moving back to the Triangle area.
"When all that happened, they thought I'd probably be in a rest home," Rogers said. "I'm not going to a rest home, I'm going to my own home. If anything happens to me, it'll be in my own home."
In December, Rogers married the former Faye Suggs, who had been his fiancée since before the accident. The couple recently moved into a new house in Person County, north of Durham, which is completely wheelchair-accessible.
His daily life is anything but easy. He said he requires nursing care 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that his own care costs between $400,000 and $500,000 a year.
But despite all that, Rogers said he's one of the lucky ones. That's because he was frugal with his money, and because at the time of his accident, he had health insurance through a job as a truck driver with the city of Durham.
"Even though I played in the NBA, the only way I was able to survive is that I had taken a job with the city," Rogers said. "That's where I got my insurance from, and that helped me out a lot."
Rodney and Faye Rogers have established the Rodney Rogers Foundation, which assists others dealing with paralysis. He said he hopes that his high profile can help raise money and awareness for the cause.
"What we're basically trying to do is raise money to help other kids and other people who can't afford these surgeries and this equipment," Rogers said. "This wheelchair I'm in cost $90,000. It's very expensive to take care of a person that has a broken neck, who's in a wheelchair, whether they're quadriplegic or paraplegic. They can't afford it, don't have the insurance for it. That's what I'm trying to do."
Rogers is sometimes frustrated by all he has gone through, but it's obvious he has one thing that helps him get through the long days: Hope.
"People don't always understand what goes on with me," Rogers said. "I have a system they put inside my body to make my diaphragm go up and down so I can breathe. I'm on a ventilator. There's a lot of different things...
"You just have to keep fighting."
WANT TO HELP? For more on the Rodney Rogers Foundation, visit www.therodneyrogersfoundation.org.
