Whether professional or amateur, being an athlete takes grit. Crank athlete Jessica Minton has been a lifelong sports person, whether playing wheelchair basketball at the University of Alabama or cranking out mileage on her handbike equivalent to that of an ultramarathon on The Silver Comet Trail. 

If you were to ask Minton why, she would say it’s because she’s competitive. Like many athletes with disabilities, sports provide endeavors that push you out of your comfort zone – disabled or not – and therefore gives you equal opportunity to beat your inner demons. 

At 11 years old, Jessica lost her leg while battling cancer. Nevertheless, this did not diminish her competitive spirit. With her driving spirit, the young Jessica entered the arena of wheelchair sports. In college at the University of Alabama, Minton zipped up and down Foster Auditorium where she played wheelchair basketball – the same building where, 40 years earlier, Governor George Wallace gave his infamous “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” speech as he attempted to block school integration.  

“The auditorium was broken down. The lights didn’t work the best, there was glass on the floors,” Jessica reflects. “But it was the beginning of a new era at (the University of) Alabama. I wasn’t the best basketball player, but I went. I accrued debt for transferring to an out of state school. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

For a season, Minton even got the opportunity to play wheelchair volleyball, globetrotting to Amsterdam to play in an international tournament. 

“I was on the first national women’s sitting volleyball team. It was introduced in 2004 as a Paralympic sport for women. I was an alternate for Greece. So, it was kind of a trial run for Greece.” 

In 2005, Jessica met her now husband, Bryant. They had a son together, Grant. One month after they brought their son home, Jessica had a stroke. The side effects from the chemotherapy when she was young triggered congestive heart failure, creating a clot in her brain. Her “strong side” was now ineffective, and Minton had to re-learn how to eat, bathe, feed herself, talk, and write again.

“The stroke changed me,” Jessica says. “I became more of an introvert. I already was an introvert, but it just got worse.  I kind of lost my competitive drive.” 

That is until July 4, 2013, as Jessica watched Brent and Kyle Pease run The Peachtree Road Race. The fire in the former wheelchair athlete sparked again. A conversation with Brent led to a new handbike. Grit and all, Minton was back in the saddle cranking through the hilly course of the Holcomb Bridge Hustle a few months later.

 “It was the hardest 5k I’ve ever done! But I loved it!”