Ward ‘ready to fly’ in bid to make U.S. team for Tokyo
Patrick Ward will be a long-shot Wednesday in a race that will decide whether he makes the U.S. Rowing team that will compete starting on Aug. 24 at the Paralympics in Tokyo.
But Ward, a 66-yearold Fort Lauderdale resident, has grown accustomed to defeating long odds.
As a Navy doctor, he lost his right leg while on active duty. He survived and endured 52 surgeries over a 20-year span. The mental anguish he suffered was even worse than the physical pain.
Prior to that, Ward had dreamt of rowing, but it was a sport he had never actually tried because he was always too busy with high school, college or the military.
“The water has always been my happy place,” said Ward, a native of Hornell, New York.
“This is something I’ve always wanted to do, and now I get a second chance.
“It’s been 10 times better than I even imagined. From the first time I got in a boat, I thought: ‘This is right where I need to be.’ ”
Ward choked up just then.
“On the water, I can be the guy I always was,” he said. “Not having my leg doesn’t matter. Nobody looks at you differently while you’re in that boat.”
Ward’s determination is almost incalculable. After COVID-19 forced people to stay home, Ward made incredible use of his time, setting seven world records on an indoor rowing machine. He has eight world records overall.
Stephanie Smith, who has been the Miami Beach Rowing Club’s adaptive coach since
2015, is no longer surprised by anything Ward accomplishes.
She met him in 2017, when she was connected to Ward through a recreational therapist who works for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“From our first conversation, Patrick told me he had aspirations of going to the Paralympics,” Smith said. “He said: ‘I don’t know what I’m doing yet, but I know I want to be great.’
“At that point, my job was to balance his expectations and make sure he knew what it would take to meet his goal.
“So far, he’s been the ideal athlete — extremely coachable and driven.”
Ward said Smith is among the people who essentially saved his life, a list that includes doctors, nurses and physical therapists.
After his injuries — which he declines to fully detail because of the pain of reliving that horror — Ward went into a deep depression.
“My family was told to make arrangements because of the severity of my injuries,” Ward said. “Everything I was and everything I wanted to be were dead. I had nothing left to live for until I got on the water.”
Ward said a physical therapist, Rafael Hernandez, was a key to his recovery, even though they didn’t exactly hit it off
initially.
“I was a better doctor than I was a patient,”
Ward said.
Later, Ward met Smith. “She was very persistent,” Ward said. “I don’t know where I would be if not for her.
“There are lost souls in this world, and I was one of them. It’s impossible to dream when you’re barely holding on.”
Ward can now dream of Tokyo because he just needs to win one race at a distance of 2,000 meters to get there.
Wednesday’s race, held at U.S. Rowing’s headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, is a co-ed tandem duel, and his teammate is Jennifer Fitz-Roy, who is from a Boston club, Community Rowing.
Fitz-Roy and Ward are the underdogs because they have only been training together for one month. The other boat they are competing against has a pair of rowers who have been practicing together for three years.
Ward competed in his first international event last year in Paris, just before the pandemic hit.
Since then, he has continued to work, and Smith said she has no doubts about Ward’s stamina and endurance, much of it built over the past year on those indoor rowing machines.
“Patrick has blossomed,” Smith said. “He is ready to fly.”