By Michael Cottingham
When I was a kid playing wheelchair tennis almost everyone I was around was an adult. All the players were really cool and kind to each other, but there were always a few people who were just a little cooler. These folks were generally the really fit paraplegics and amputees, and they had a swagger. I loved observing these dynamics from a distance and I really liked watching this one guy, Sebastian DeFrancisco. He was older (even then), smaller, and he was the only quadriplegic in that group. He pushed himself in, made noise, and was going to have his voice heard. He was charismatic but in his own way. He had a charm I felt like I could identify with. He was funny and fearless, and so I wanted to get to know him.
Sebastian was a strong tennis player for his disability function, but he was also a future hall of famer in US wheelchair rugby, a Paralympian table tennis player (and US table tennis hall of famer), and coached a wheelchair basketball team to a national championship game. He was a renaissance man of disability sports and one of the last of those guys who did it all. More importantly, he introduced so many people to sports. He promoted with a passion and he hooked people.
What I didn’t know until later was sports was just the tip of the iceberg. Sebastian was a green beret, one of only six people from his class of 300 that graduated. He was injured in Vietnam and broke his neck when he was just 22. This was WAYYY before the ADA and even before the Rehab Act. I need to stress that Sebastian was a quadriplegic, at a time when even paraplegics struggled to get out in their communities. He was fearless and couldn’t be quieted.
He lobbied Congress on issues of homeless veterans, driving a movement that has helped many vets land on their feet. He pushed on a number of veteran issues, and he had the resume, the gravitas, and the hutzpah to get heard by very influential people. He pushed issues nationally, but he also invested in his community. He was evidently a force in Santa Cruz, CA where he was a pleasant and charming thorn in the side of local city planners and politicians–helping to make his community inclusive to people with disabilities. What I love about is he wasn’t just an advocate, he was also invested at the ground level. There wasn’t housing for people with disabilities and hotel space was limited. So, he decided to invest. He purchased and created some of the first accessible hotel spaces in Santa Cruz, because if people were not going to do the right thing, then Sebastian would just do it himself. So, he became very influential in his community when it came to housing plans and access.
The man was an advocate for justice and when he needed a liver transplant (due to medical complications) he fought like hell to get it. You have to understand that, at the time, people with spinal cord injuries didn’t really have access to transplants. It was seen as wasteful. Sebastian got a liver, AND proved them wrong, outliving the life expectancy of the average transplant recipient, and going on to adopt his second daughter.
He and his wife Biz have been fighting for years. They were a team and did amazing work together. We lost a hero and someone who fixed problems. I hate that he is gone, but if you want to honor him, push yourself into the cool kids’ group, go do something, make something better, and fight like hell. Do it with love in your heart and ice in your veins.
