There are some dates in people's lives that stand out above others. For Mike Savicki, one of those was 1990. Shortly after graduating from Tufts University (B.A. International Relations and Political Science), and receiving his officer commission as the Outstanding Naval Aviation Candidate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mike sustained a paralyzing cervical spinal cord injury in a service-connected training accident. By year's end, instead of continuing on his path to fly F-14s, he was learning to use a wheelchair.
His life path altered, he persisted. Mike earned an MBA from Duke University (delivering the commencement address), accepted a job as a government, healthcare, and information technology consultant, and became active in wheelchair sports locally, regionally, and nationally.
But feeling a pull to serve others, and a belief that sports, unlike almost anything else, can build communities, bridge gaps, erase prejudice, and promote peace, he began work as Deputy Director of an innovative, integrative, sports nonprofit, World TEAM (The Exceptional Athlete Matters) Sports. He played a major role in the success of projects not only across the United States but also in countries like Nepal, New Zealand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. 1998’s Vietnam Challenge, a 1200 mile cycling adventure between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with an integrated team of Vietnamese and American veterans, many from the war, became the subject of an Emmy award winning documentary film, “Vietnam, Long Time Coming.” The groundwork that he laid for 2000’s Face of America Adventure, a unique, cross-country, multi-sport journey with two separate teams beginning on opposite coasts and coming together under the arch in St. Louis in celebration of America’s diversity in the new millennium, has allowed that event to continue even today.
Mike is the current Founder and Chief Thinker of Afterburner Communications, a boutique communications consulting firm that assists clients through writing, speaking, advocacy, lobbying, consulting, and special projects. He has been instrumental in the passing of state and federal legislation advancing the interest of both veterans and those with disabilities. His writings appear regularly across multiple media sources.
As a high school teacher at the Community School of Davidson (NC), Mike continues to use sports as a way to educate. His elective course, “Sport in Society,'' is oversubscribed. As sport becomes a language more and more people speak, Mike believes it should be required study for anyone with an involvement in, or a love of, sports as it can shape and shift the world.
Mike continues as an athlete. He is arguably one of the most accomplished wheelchair marathoners in history with two dozen Boston Marathon finishes across five decades, including five overall Quad Division wins. Mike is the only athlete to have ever completed the legendary Boston course both on foot and in a racing wheelchair. And he played wheelchair rugby, more commonly known as MURDERBALL, for more than three decades. Mike has won more than 100 gold medals at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games and was a member of Team Navy at the inaugural Warrior Games (now the Invictus Games). He is a multi-time handcycling national champion who slows down by kayaking, fishing, boating, and traveling.
Mike, his efforts and his work, has appeared in the New York Times, USA today, NBC Nightly News, and NPR. He has also appeared on a limited edition Cheerios cereal box honoring disabled veterans in sport.
Mike is also the recipient of the Tufts University Athletic Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award.
Mike lives in North Carolina and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Honored to assist The Trebuchet, Mike supports the effort to create non-partisan policy forums for ethical global engagement and citizenship while creating distinctive educational opportunities for those who see hope and promise in our world.
Mike and I collaborated during the EPIIC Global Games year. He taught myself and my students, along with other indominable athletes and people, the myopia of thinking about people in terms of being able bodied or being disabled at T.E.A.M. I had to laugh when he told me that he had been too intimidated to take EPIIC, because of its workload! It has been joyous for myself and my family to have cheered Mike on at various Boston Marathons, and I am honored that Mike has taken elements of the global sports curriculum into his high school seminars on sports and society that are always oversubscribed.
