When Jim Leatherman first went to Camp Greentop at the age of 11, he was just another scared kid on a bus with a bunch of strangers. “My Mom kept saying ‘You're going to love this. It's going to be so great,'” says Jim, who lost both legs at the age of six while playing on the railroad tracks near his home in South Baltimore. “Then we pulled up to the League and I was thinking, ‘What has my mother done to me?”
His mother—and Camp Greentop—ended up taking his life in an unexpected and fulfilling direction.
“My first day at camp I was shooting baskets and this long-haired counselor came up to me and suggested I join the wheelchair basketball league,” says Jim, who is now 43 and a Paralympics medallist in wheelchair basketball and sailing. “I tried out for the team, the Baltimore Ravens, made it, and became very active. Sports and Camp Greentop were the biggest reasons for shaping me into the person I am today. Until Camp Greentop, I didn't know these outlets existed.”
Jim didn't stop with hoops. Over the years, he has played sled hockey (instead of standing up to skate, participants sit on an adaptive device known as a sled), wheelchair racquetball, sailing, horseback riding, snow-skiing and swimming. “You name it, I've tried it. The only thing I haven't done is golf.”
He enjoys sharing his expertise, teaching snow-skiing to people with disabilities and coaching his son's basketball team. “I like giving back to the community,” he says, adding that he also does motivational speaking for the United Way.
Jim has worked at Social Security for 27 years and is a senior manager in the Office of Disability. He was also a sergeant in the Baltimore County Auxiliary Police Department. “I was the only member in the country in a wheelchair. I was in traffic enforcement and we gave out tickets and had the power to arrest. It was pretty neat.”
His dedication to athletics and advocacy has taken him all over the country and to Spain, England, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands. “I've done lots of great things and it was the League and Camp Greentop that opened the doors of opportunity to me.”