Nebraska native Schneider’s struggles lead to Paralympic legacy

SYRACUSE, Neb. (KSNB) - As Natalie Schneider strapped into her wheelchair inside her home gym in Syracuse, Nebraska, in July, Paris was on the horizon.

“I never dreamed my career would last this long,” Schneider said.

Schneider is co-captain of Team USA women’s wheelchair basketball at the Paralympic Games.

“I don’t know how this happened, but all of a sudden I’m going to No. 5,” she said.

The goal is a third gold medal in her fifth Paralympics.

“She wants another one,” Team USA women’s wheelchair basketball coach Christina Schwab said. “I told her, I was like, ‘If you want to win a third gold medal, that’s great because I have three gold medals. Someone needs to have three with me.’”

But Schneider’s path in the sport is different than most.

“I hated it at first,” Schneider said. “I was the kid sitting backwards in the bleachers and coloring during every game.”

“Just the act of playing the sport, I just instantly loved it,” Schneider added.

Her passion grew as she did, living a life as a multi-sport, able-bodied athlete in Crete.

“I had big goals, I really wanted to play Division I basketball,” Schneider said.

That all changed in the summer after her sophomore year. It’s 1999 and Natalie Nelsen is 16-years-old. Her and her sister, Dana Nelsen, just led the Cardinals to their first state tournament appearance since 1992. A few months later, Nelsen got news that changed her life.

“Having the doctor tell me in the same day that I had cancer and that I was not going to be able to run or jump ever again, losing basketball was more devastating to me than the actual diagnosis,” she said.

It was cancer in her femur.

“Losing that was really kind of losing a sense of myself,” Nelsen, who has since remarried as Schneider, said. “It still kind of makes my gut sink. There wasn’t really much time to deal with it. I just went from being on this crazy high, we made it to state, I was training hard and looking forward to my next year of high school basketball and high school sports. And I just suddenly couldn’t do anything.”

On April 28, 2000, she won her fight. And life moved forward. She’s had three children, all who were born in Hastings, lived in Ord and now resides in Syracuse. All while still representing her state, and country, on the international stage.

“I got to have an understanding that’s different than anyone else’s,” Schneider said.

Schneider entered the wheelchair basketball space as a late bloomer. After graduating college at Doane, she got introduced following a stint in sitting volleyball.

“I do remember seeing her and being like, ‘Wow, this girl is going to be really good,’” Schwab said. “She has those natural instincts and she always has. It was just about putting the wheelchair to use.”

“I knew I loved basketball, but I’d forgotten how much that fills my bucket,” Schneider said.

She tried out for the national team before the 2008 games in Beijing, where she not only made the roster, but won her first gold medal.

“The very first time that I saw the U.S. flag raised and hearing the national anthem with a gold medal around my neck, that was the most meaningful experience,” Schneider said.

“I saw her from the very beginning, I feel like, to become one of the biggest powerhouses in the game,” Schwab said.

And don’t count Schneider out for a run to her sixth games in Los Angeles in 2028.

“I feel like I shouldn’t say it’s the last one,” Schneider said. “I really think it is this time.”

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