Natalie Nelsen Schneider, a 2005 Doane graduate, has earned a spot on the 2008 U.S. Paralympic Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team that will represent the United States at the Paralympic Games in Beijing, China, Sept. 6-17. Schneider, 25, is one of 12 athletes selected and the only new team member from the Midwest. The roster includes six members of the 2004 U.S. Paralympic Team, which won the gold medal in Athens, Greece.
Schneider earned math and computer science degrees from Doane and a master's degree in statistics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She currently is a statistician for ACTON Marketing in Lincoln. She is the daughter of Dennis and Nancy Nelsen of Crete. Dennis coached boys basketball at Crete High for 24 years and was an assistant women's basketball coach at Doane for nine years. Nancy is a longtime executive secretary for Doane's Admission Office.
Schneider was a standout athlete at Crete High who, as a sophomore, was an All Conference, All State Honorable Mention varsity athlete on a basketball team that qualified for the state tournament. At age 16, she was diagnosed with malignant osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. Doctors placed a titanium rod inside her femur to replace the bone that was removed with the cancer. Her knee joint also is titanium.
Because a break or a fall could result in amputation of the leg, doctors told her she had to find alternative ways to compete. Her senior year at Doane, she joined a sitting volleyball team and was selected for the women's USA sitting volleyball team in Denver. She had to leave the team because of the danger the sport posed to her leg.
A short time later, she joined the Madonna Magic wheelchair basketball team and then attended a wheelchair basketball camp at the University of Arizona, where she was invited to join the university's women's wheelchair basketball team as a "fly-in."
She was nominated for the U.S. Paralympics team following a weekend selection camp at Lakeshore Foundation, an official U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training site.