Semoball speaker tells how he overcame obstacles

Kyle Maynard has hit untold walls in his young life.

"There have been many, many moments that I've begged to quit," he said during his keynote address Saturday at the 2014 Semoball Awards banquet at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

But the motivational speaker, author and mixed-martial artist didn't give up, whether learning how to don socks for the first time or climbing the highest mountain in Africa on all fours.

His parents wouldn't let him. And for that, the quadruple amputee says he is profoundly grateful.

"If you offered me a billion dollars to go get arms and legs, I probably wouldn't do it," he said. "[My disability] is by far and away the greatest gift I've been given in my life."

Maynard was born in 1986 with a rare condition that caused his limbs to end at his elbows and knees. It's called congenital amputation.

Although doctors told his parents they would always have to help their son with everything, Maynard's condition didn't stop him from making his mark as an athlete. It also didn't stop him from being able to type 50 to 60 words a minute with only his elbows, drive a truck, open his own gym, have his own apartment and travel all over the world to spread his motivational messages to anyone willing to listen.

"It's our responsibility to impact people who are prepared to be impacted," he told the audience.

Maynard began wrestling when he was 11, losing every match his first year in the ring.

"My dad sits me down and says, 'I didn't win a single match my first year, either,'" he recalled.

His dad, Scott, was 22 and in the Army when Maynard was born. He and Maynard's mother, Anita, decided early on they would teach their son to be as independent as possible.

In a video tribute before Maynard's presentation Saturday, his mother spoke during a brief clip.

"He may look disabled," she said, "but he's not, and that's inspiring."

Inspiration was the name of Maynard's game as the award ceremony sought to recognize the best young athletes in Southeast Missouri. He stepped in as keynote speaker on behalf of former St. Louis Cardinal Ozzie Smith, who was called away for the funeral of fellow Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who died of cancer last week.

"Anything we want badly in life ... can become possible," he said. "We can bring whatever we want into the realm of possibility, I believe, through our spirit."

Even though Maynard's first attempts at wrestling weren't a smashing success, he had won 36 varsity matches by his senior year in high school. He went on to play football successfully and picked up accolades in martial arts as well.

Maynard is the 2004 and 2012 ESPY award winner (Best Athlete with a Disability) and was inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2005.

He has been featured on Oprah Winfrey's show, "Larry King Live," "Good Morning America," ESPN's SportsCenter and several other major national outlets.

Also in 2005, he wrote The New York Times best-selling autobiography "No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life."

Always having wanted to be in the Army himself, Maynard helps wounded soldiers during rehabilitation.

In 2011, he brought an entourage of wounded veterans, friends and trainers to Tanzania as he prepared to scale the almost 20,000-foot summit of Mount Kilimanjaro by bearcrawling -- essentially, climbing the gargantuan formation on all four stumps.

He attempted the feat for a couple of reasons. One, he wanted to promote awareness of combat injuries. He also had made a promise to a grieving mother he'd met in an Arizona gym.

In the lead-up to his African adventure, the mother told Maynard of how her son, Corey Johnson, had died in Afghanistan the previous year after saving several other Marines. How he always had wanted to travel and climb mountains. How family members had been struggling over how to dispose of his ashes.

"Would you carry them to the summit?" she asked Maynard.

Of course he would.

Climbing the mountain was anything but easy, however. On day four of the 15-day ordeal, for which he had trained long and hard, Maynard's short arms and legs were starting to swell. The pain was next to unbearable.

He became quiet and withdrawn, asking his friends to leave him alone. Eventually, he crawled into his tent to vent his feelings, fearing he was doomed to break his promise to Johnson's mother.

"That day, I was broken," he said. "Didn't want to talk to anyone. Told everyone, 'You have to be quiet when you're around me.'"

But the more his sadness crashed around him, the more he began to feel he wasn't alone.

"I felt Corey there in that tent," he told the audience. "I was not going to stop, no matter how bad it got. He was really why I was there on that mountain."

The next day, Maynard resumed climbing with renewed vigor. It was almost as if someone unseen were helping him, he said.

And, yes, he did reach the summit of the 19,341-foot peak. And, yes, he's got plenty more mountains left to climb.

"He inspires us to persevere in the face of obstacles," said Lucas Presson of the Southeast Missourian, who was instrumental in organizing the Semoball Awards.