Parasports

He is a sports physiotherapist by background and is currently player health lead for para football at the Football Association England.

He has a PhD in concussion and sport and is currently co-chair of the concussion and para sport group.

And he's also my bud.

So Oz, welcome to the podcast.

And the other tool that's currently in preparation is the Parascat 6 VI for athletes with visual impairment.

Now, this is a bit further behind, but this is an external review undertaken, and it's going through the external validation process.

Now, before I go into too much detail around the tools, I just want to give a huge thanks to Dr. Eric Post, Dr. John Finoff, Dr. Ashley Triplett, and Dr. Travis Anderson, who at the time were all at the USOPC, got us all together over at Colorado Springs in February 2025 it was and similar to the concussion in para sport group position statement got an international group of individuals clinicians and researchers but also and I'd say most importantly had athletes with lived experience of each condition as part of the preparation process so we all did a lot of pre-work before we came to Colorado Springs that involved us taking the existing SCAT6 and just really applying a wheelchair use a lens to it so looking at every angle of that and thinking if an athlete was using a wheelchair as a primary means of mobility would they be able to do this test with those baseline questions be valid for them are these instructions appropriate are the guidance comments to clinicians using this scat6 tool appropriate so went through every element of that and by doing that we were able to get ourselves to a position where when we came together in person a lot of the work had been done and then we could just refine a lot of our discussions and come to some agreements And like I say, the biggie really was having the athletes in the room.

I mean, I'm a bit biased in that regard.

Um, like in the U.S., we have the constitutional Three-Fifths Compromise, um, which in 1789 was that provision that mandated for the purpose of population assessment, um, an enslaved person would count as three-fifths of a person.

And you talk about this, um, in contemporary para sport classifications, which I think links to the conversation we're talking about of looking beyond gender identity as a form of classification.

Um, if we look a bit more m- macro and bigger picture, can you unpack for us how institutions and their constant attempts to quantify physical movement perpetuate structural and systemic inequalities?

Sure.

So one of the things I think about a lot in terms of why is there this rigid gender dichotomy being in play all the time is this assumption that non-trans men are just the strongest people around.

So why can't we have two men, two women, non-binary people, whatever, in pairs or dance? Because inevitably, the people who are at the top of that hierarchy are just gonna be physically stronger, and those are always gonna be men, which of course, one, isn't true, and two, sets aside, um, a million things.

So one way I got really into thinking about this was in relation to para sport, um, which for people who don't follow it that much are the sports for people, um, with various particular disabilities that are in an Olympic pipeline, so they have to be, you know...

There are regulations that lead you p- potentially somewhere through that pipeline.

At McLean, he serves as founder and president of the Sports Analytics Club and captain of the Warren Investment Competition Team.

Outside of academics, Max plays varsity basketball, coaches youth camps, produces documentaries on adaptive sports, and releases original music on SoundCloud.

Welcome, Max.

Would you like to tell us a little bit more about Sports for All?

For example, recently, we've just hosted a event where we handed out athletic tape and resistance bands to as a partnership with Safe Strong Sport to help.

kind of reduce injury risks for these players and also kind of give exposure to these players in general.

And we've also had different opportunities that kind of introduce more people to adaptive sports.

Like every year annually, there is like this local wheelchair basketball tournament and Last year, our local high school, Gonzaga High School, had a lot of different able-bodied athletes, some from crew, some from basketball, and they all came to cheer for the team.

Um, we have the contacts now, so I wanna bring it back.

I guess I'm, I'm gonna be adding tennis to our adaptive sports down here.

The repertoire.

She's gonna kill it.

I just see you guys as somebody that's trying to get better, and my job, my goal is to help you achieve that.

I don't kinda like putting you guys in, "Oh, this is another patient." No, I'm like, "This is just another person.

This is another person that wants to accomplish something else." Um, and when, it's like Rico says, "One win brings another win." Once you start getting those little wins, they start accumulating, and then all of a sudden you're playing adaptive sports.

You're starting to make your abilities, your skills, everything starts to grow.

I mean, Joshua Filler has that effect on the industry.

I understand that Parasport right now is in the developing, which is kind of like a baby that's going to learn how to crawl.

And we got to turn our place into superstars so that, because Predator at the end is a business too.

Sure.

And that has increased their value, you know, life value.

That is so rewarding, I have to say.

Do you learn a lot from your peers around the world? You know, like the other Parasport players, do you have a lot of conversations with them about what's going on in their country for the cause?

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

And for me, that was all around adaptive sports, actually.

And that was when I was in rehab.

So I was in rehab.

You know, you get sent to rehab to learn how to live in a wheelchair.

And I had no idea what my life was going to look like.

And then I got introduced to adaptive sports.

And for me, that was hand cycling.