Norwin grad realizes 'lifelong dream' by making Paralympic goalball team

A 2013 Norwin High School graduate will play for the U.S. goalball team in the Paralympic Games in Tokyo in August.

“It’s been a lifelong dream to be playing in the Paralympics. It’s exhilarating,” said Calahan Young, the North Huntingdon native now living in Fort Wayne, Ind., the training site for the team. The Goalball Center for Excellence is in Fort Wayne, where Young has lived since 2017.

Young was named to the six- member squad earlier this month and is its team captain. He is the only member of the men’s and women’s goalball teams from Pennsylvania.

“There is stiff competition to make the team. We have a deep pool of (goalball) players competing,” Young said. The team has six players and two alternates.

The game in which Young excels is unique. The three players on each team are visually impaired. Wearing opaque goggles to block out any remnants of their vision, they compete by throwing a ball down a volleyball-sized court into a 29½-foot-wide net that is about 4 feet high.

Young is legally blind because he has retinitis pigmentosa. The National Eye Institute describes it as a rare, genetic disorder involving the loss of cells in the retina, the light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye. Vision loss can occur in early adulthood, which is what has happened to Young, who uses a white cane when walking.

The game he plays involves placing three players in front of the net. When Calahan is not trying to score by throwing the ball into the net, he will be listening for the ball embedded with bells, which give him a sense of where it is headed. Locating where the sound is coming from as soon as possible will allow him to stretch his 6-foot-7-inch frame in the right direction to block the ball before it reaches the back of the net on his side of the court.

Picking Young for the team was an easy choice for the men’s goalball coach.

“He is one of the best all-around players in the world,” said the team’s coach, Keith Young (no relation to Calahan Young).

Calahan Young shined in a recent tournament against defending champion Lithuania, which the U.S. won, Keith Young said. He was the top scorer in the tournament, playing against elite competition, the coach said.

The coach said Young has a way of throwing the ball down the court with a spin on it, making it harder for opponents to block. Scores can vary wildly in a game of goalball, which has two 12-minute halves, Keith Young said.

The Paralympic competition does not begin in Tokyo until Aug. 25, with the medal matches set for Sept. 3.

Before Young’s vision deteriorated, he played baseball, basketball and football at Norwin. But, as tunnel vision became more pronounced, he was forced to stop playing those sports and turned to goalball, which is described as the best sport for the visually impaired.

While at Norwin, he started playing goalball with other visually impaired students through a Westmoreland Intermediate Unit program, said Bill Closson, a former Norwin High School teacher of the visually impaired, who is a certified orientation and mobility specialist.

“He had the desire and passion to do it,” Closson said.

Also in high school, he became involved in goalball with the former VIP Sports in Mercer. He was part of goalball national championships while in high school. He said he became more comfortable with the sport and chose to enroll at Slippery Rock University, where he earned a degree in recreational therapy. At Slippery Rock, he was part of goalball championship teams in 2015 and ’17.

“I felt they were an awesome four years,” Young said.

While pursuing his dream of playing in the Paralympics, Young continued his studies. He recently earned his master’s degree in health care administration from George Mason University. He hopes to work as a consultant in the health care field.

For now, he is training five days a week at the Turnstone Center in Fort Wayne, the official U.S. Olympic & Paralympic training site. His routine is three days of practice and two days of weightlifting. That will keep the muscle on his 250-pound frame. Add to the routine multiple tests daily for covid, he said.

The team leaves for Tokyo on Aug. 17, and Young said he is not worried about going where the spread of covid remains a risk. Tokyo is among the major Japanese cities that is under a covid state of emergency. The slow distribution of the coronavirus vaccine has prompted some Japanese public health officials to recommend another postponement of the games or even canceling the event.

Japan has banned foreign visitors from the games, so Calahan said none of his family and friends — his rooting section — can watch his performance in person.

“I’ve got my mom and a whole giant fan base that will be watching” the games, juggling their schedules because of the time difference, he said.