At the age of 17, when his future should have been filled with hope, Marc Romero tragically lost his leg in a horrific motorcycle accident. He reveals, “My childhood wasn’t easy. My dad divorced my mom when I was 13. Because of his leaving, I was inspired to help my mom as well as my sisters, Regina and Diana. We were much in need of money, so I readily accepted the opportunity to sell pot when I was in eighth grade. Lots of kids, and a few adults, liked buying from me because I was friendly, a good salesman, and I sold the best weed. What most benefitted me was earning $200 a week.”
As Marc strived to survive during his high school years, a death defying disaster nearly ended his life. “I grew up on my own since I never had a father figure. My mom remarried a train conductor, and that guy had little to no interest in me. On April 12, 1979, during my senior year in high school, disaster forever changed my life. I was riding my Yamaha 250 motorcycle to my tennis lesson, when another street bike rider doing 60 mph on a 1000cc crotch-rider struck me in my lane. It seemed the cops did not care, and then cared even less when they realized I was known to sell the evil weed in high school. I also thought the lawyers didn’t care about me or my case because I didn’t have a motorcycle insurance policy,” he says.
“Confined for months to a hospital bed, Marc wrestled with negativity.”
Confined for months to a hospital bed, Marc wrestled with negativity. “I used to think I was a ‘lovable loser.’ I did everything on my own without any support from my family. Rarely did they visit me. Hospital visits from friends were also few since my accident occurred two months before prom. My classmates were consumed with prom as well as graduation as I endured multiple surgeries, including one excruciating stump revision procedure, where a large flap of flesh from my back was removed and grafted onto the tip of my stump. This turned out to be a godsend because I was able to use a prosthetic. When I told my prosthetist I had learned to waterski at a young age, he suggested I take adaptive ski lessons at Mount Sunapee, which was the base for NEHSA (New England Handicapped Sports Association). NEHSA is one of the oldest adaptive snow sports learning centers on the East Coast. When the prosthetist added, ‘Marc, adaptive skiing and adaptive snowboarding will blow your mind,’ I was sold. The year was 1987, and somehow I knew skiing would forever change my life.”
Marc signed up as a three-track skier, which is skiing with outriggers. “My confidence soared as I was learning to ski. Everything changed for me when I was learning how to ski bumps, steeps and powder. At first, it was also a humbling experience. My first adaptive ski instructor was a woman. When I fell, which was often, she picked me up like a little kid. Once I learned how to get up on my own, I told my instructor, ‘This sucks! Now you’re not going to pick me up anymore.’ When I became proficient at skiing, I asked her, somewhat in jest, to go dancing and hot tubbing. She said, ‘Marc, I keep telling you I’m married.’ I gained self-confidence thanks to her, and because of her my skiing career took off. I skied every weekend. It took time to regain my strength, but patience and persistence paid off. I became a really good, one-legged skier,” he shares.
Maintaining a positive and competitive mindset, combined with Marc’s insatiable craving to go faster and faster, propelled his competitive spirit. “I joined the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) Winter Park Disabled Ski Team summer training camp in 1987. I competed in what I call skiing standup and used two handheld outriggers. The outriggers have short ski tips at the end and are used for balance and turn initiation. The design of the mono-ski allows the skier to use the ski dynamically, and became my thing. Soon thereafter, I went to U.S. Disabled Ski Nationals 1987 in Attitash, NH as a ‘1-tracker racer in wait.’ When I moved to Colorado, I joined the U.S. and World’s former No. 1-rated disabled ski racing programs in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I climbed the 1-track ranks and made the U.S. Disabled Ski Team 1990 and 1991, which was then the toughest stand-up class of 1-trackers. The U.S. had 8 of the top 15 1-trackers (LW2) in the world. Six of us on the team had trained with the Winter Park Disabled Ski team.”
Competition combined with the exhilaration of skiing at top speeds reignited Marc’s will to live. “The more I competed, the more I wanted to share the thrill of it with people of all ages. I produced an hour-long documentary that captured free-skiing stories of sit skiers, a blind skier, and my own story as a one-leg amputee. I titled the film “Heroes of the Slopes” that culminated into 14 short stories. PBS aired one hour of my documentary in 2007. Soon after, “Heroes of the Slopes” aired on PBS. I was presented the opportunity to share my documentary throughout the Jefferson County School District. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with kids from kindergarten through the 12th grade.”
Now, with his competitive years behind him, Marc is focusing on advocacy. “I started my YouTube channel, “Adaptive Sports Evolution,” in 2016 and the Para Sports Network Website dot.com in 2018. I was also an English game color commentator and helped the German broadcast team call WCBB games to the world and for the WCBB Worlds of 2018 in Hamburg, Germany. Currently, I’m hoping there still may be a place for me as a wheelchair basketball commentator, and hopeful to become a Para/WCBB blogger-reporter for NBC Sports.”
In August 2024, Marc will be releasing his self-published book, “The One-Track Song Man,” and he’s hopeful to become a broadcaster when France hosts their first-ever Paralympic Summer Games from August 28 through September 8. “The ceremony will open on August 28 with a parade on the iconic Champs-Élysées, with 184 delegations participating from around the world. It would be a dream come true to land a spot with NBC sports or the Peacock channel to help broadcast from a para-athlete’s point of view,” he says.
Throughout his complex life journey, Marc has risen above his limitations and does not allow his disabilities to define him. He claims, “Everything I’ve gone through was meant to be.”
