Dana Mathewson was 10 years old when she contracted a rare autoimmune disease which impacted her spinal cord. After being in the hospital for about a month, her mom wanted her to give adaptive sports a try. As an athletic child, she was extremely hesitant to see what adaptive sports would be like in comparison. Like some other athletes, she never thought they would be competitive enough. But as she states, she was quickly proven wrong, and fell in love with the sport of wheelchair tennis.

Dana would go on to attend the University of Arizona, one of the few schools in the country that had a collegiate level adaptive sports program and gave her a scholarship to compete on their wheelchair tennis team. Being able to play sports at a Division I school was a dream of hers. Now, she is pursuing a doctorate but also focused on returning to her second Paralympic Games. She is the number 1 ranked female wheelchair tennis player in the U.S. and currently ranked 9th in the world leading up to Tokyo.

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