Paralyzed Cal player keeps his promise, walks for diploma
BERKELEY >> For Robert Paylor, paralyzed from the neck down after suffering an injury playing for the Cal rugby team in 2017, the moment was now.
In front of more than 1,400 of his 2020 classmates and perhaps 5,000 more at the Greek Theater for in-person graduation ceremonies Sunday,
Paylor stood up from his wheelchair, gripped his walker and did what he had promised himself he would someday do.
Once told he might never move again, let alone walk, Paylor stepped toward Chancellor Carol T. Christ and her assistant, and accepted his diploma. The crowd rose and delivered a joyous roar.
“Finally being able to be here and see my classmates, see my friends, have my family witness this moment that’s taken 1,576 days to get to, it’s the realization of a dream,” Paylor said later.
Paylor, 24, stood up from his wheelchair for the first time since September. He now can move himself 300 yards with his walker.
“While this was only 5 to 10 yards,” he said, “it’s some of the most important 5 to 10 yards I’ll ever walk in my life.”
Paylor, who came to Cal after graduating from Jesuit High School in Sacramento, completed work toward his degree from the Haas School of Business a year ago, but graduation ceremonies in 2020 were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He served as the keynote speaker for a virtual graduation held
for Cal athletes in May of last year.
This was different.
“It couldn’t be a bigger moment for our family. It couldn’t be a bigger moment for Robert,” said his mother, Debbie Paylor. “Just the applause, the standing ovation, it goes into your soul of how much people have carried Robert through his journey.”
Paylor was a sophomore on Cal’s rugby team when he was paralyzed May 6, 2017, during the Bears’ national championship game against Arkansas State.
“They were still playing rugby around my numb, motionless body,” Paylor told the Mercury News last year. “I looked like a corpse.”
Doctors offered little hope. The road back was long and treacherous. Paylor developed pneumonia and couldn’t swallow or breathe independently. He dropped 60 pounds and had to have his lungs pumped every three hours, often by his mother.
His father has been impressed but not entirely surprised by his son’s relentless approach to recovery.
“He sets goals and he always goes after them 110 miles per hour,” Jeff Paylor said. “You never know how you’re going to rebound after something where you’re paralyzed from the neck down. The discipline and who he was ... the faith and the drive to never give up, it just became another goal, another obstacle he was going to take down.”
Paylor credits hundreds of people with assisting him over the past four years, and thousands more who have reached out to him from across the world, sending their prayers and providing him motivation.
Few people have spent more time with Paylor than Cal associate head rugby coach Tom Billups, who devoted two nearly full-time years to the cause.
“I think it will certainly be the most important coaching I’ve ever done,” Billups said.
When Sunday morning arrived, with Billups still at his side on the stage, Paylor admitted he felt the same pregame jitters he had as a rugby player. The two had rehearsed the occasion, and Paylor was driven by a determination that he couldn’t afford to foul this up.
Once on the stage, he said he felt euphoria, but also humility and gratitude.
“Because there was a time I was laying in a hospital bed and I couldn’t move anything. I couldn’t feel anything,” he said. “I’m fighting for my life and the thing that was getting me through that moment was the eventual dream that I had, to be able to walk across the stage and to be able to share this story with thousands — I hope millions — of people across this world.
“I hope when they saw me walk across that stage they saw themselves overcoming their own challenges.”
Paylor has embarked on a career as an inspirational speaker and has begun writing a book with the working title, “Paralyzed and Powerful.”
“To everyone who has helped me, thank you,” he said backstage. “Because this day was not guaranteed . ... To be able to come back to Cal to graduate one day, let alone being able to do it on my own two feet.”