Episode 84: Nate Tucker (Paralympic Gold Medalist, World Champion)
🎙 This week on the Youth $ports Podcast: I sit down with Paralympic World Champion & Paralympic Gold Medalist middle-distance runner Nate Tucker, whose story is equal parts shocking, inspiring, and unforgettable.
🔹 Nate grew up in a one-of-a-kind household with two Olympian parents still actively competing, where hard work wasn’t preached… it was lived.
🔹 Every morning started with family workouts in the garage… ending in 50-meter sprint races down the street. Nate says, “Rent is due every day.”
🔹 At age 10, Nate’s life changed instantly after a freak golf accident left him with a traumatic brain injury and paralysis on the right side of his body.
🔹 Doctors feared lifelong limitations. Nate had to relearn how to eat, write with his left hand, and navigate a new reality with a stutter and learning disability.
🔹 He opens up about struggling to fit in at school, being bullied, and feeling like his identity was taken away. “I learned I can’t build my identity on sports alone.”
🔹 Running began as therapy… but became a path forward that pushed him beyond what the world expected.
🔹 Nate became a high school All-American competing against able-bodied athletes, breaking school records and finishing among the best in Georgia.
🔹 In college, he faced setbacks, mental roadblocks, and failure, but learned that “you wake up every day entitled to nothing.”
🔹 With encouragement from his mom, Nate pursued the Paralympics… even after spending years hiding his disability.
🔹 He shares powerful insight on “invisible disabilities” and why they can be just as taxing as what people can see.
🔹 Nate broke the world record in his first Paralympic race, and eventually became a T38 Paralympic Olympic Gold Medalist.
🔹 And for Olympic fans… Nate gives incredible behind-the-scenes perspective on what it’s REALLY like: 15,000 miles of training… for 3 minutes and 50 seconds on the world stage.
