This month we are featuring two individuals who had to overcome serious injuries and adversity to achieve their goals. Most people would have given up, but Mark Zupan and Malala Yousufzai were each stronger than their injuries and refused to accept the prospect of living less than their best lives.

Mark Zupan (born May 20, 1975) Zupan was born in Cleveland Ohio. He played varsity football and soccer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. His athletic abilities earned him a scholarship to Florida Atlantic University. After a soccer game, Zupan and his teammates went out for drinks at a local bar. Zupan became intoxicated and left the bar to lay down in the bed of his friend’s pick-up truck. His friend, unaware Zupan was in the back of his truck, drove away from the bar while intoxicated and crashed. Zupan was thrown from the vehicle over a fence and into a canal. He held onto a branch for fourteen hours before being rescued. He went into hypothermia and became paralyzed as a result of the accident. Zupan has incomplete quadriplegia and is able to walk short distances with crutches.

After his accident, Zupan graduated from Georgia Tech and became a two-time quad rugby national champion. He was named, the 2004 quad rugby player of the year. He was a member of the bronze medal-winning  U.S. Team at the 2004 Summer Paralympics and the gold medal-winning team at the 2008 Games. He appeared in the 2005 film Murderball and made an appearance in the TV show, Friday Night Lights as a friend of the character Jason Street. He has also appeared in a number of other Tv programs and three movies in the  Jackass franchise. In 2019, he got married and now resides in Texas.

Malala Yousufzai (born July 12, 1997) Malala was born in Pakistan. She is an activist for female education and human rights. In 2014 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The seventeen-year-old became the youngest Nobel prize, laureate.

Malala’s parents were activists. At eleven years old, Malala started a blog under the pseudonym, Gul Makai for the BBC Urdu detailing her life under the Taliban occupation of Swat. Her life was featured in a New York Times documentary the next year. She became internationally known and began to speak out about the treatment of women and girls by the Taliban. In 2012 while riding a bus with friends after finishing an exam in Swat, Malala and two other girls were shot by a Taliban gunman in an assassination plot in retaliation for her activism. Malala was shot in the head and remained in critical condition at a local hospital. When her condition improved she was transferred to a hospital in the UK where she made a complete recovery. Her life remained in danger because of threats from the Taliban. Muslim Clerics in Pakistan denounced the attack.

After her recovery, Malala continued her activism in the UK raising funds to help educate Pakistani girls and raise awareness throughout the world about the plight of women under Taliban rule. In 2013, she co-authored the international best seller, I am Malala. She was the subject of the Oscar short-listed film, He Named Me Malala in 2015. In 2013, 2014, and 2015, Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Malala completed her education in England and got married in 2021. She continues her activism and has become an inspiration to people all over the world. 

Image of Mark Zupan:

By iamcootis - originally posted to Flickr as Mark Zupan, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10525672

Single Image of Malala:

By 内閣官房内閣広報室 - This file has been extracted from another file, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81616823