Loading your audio article
SPRINGFIELD — Jack Cunningham was 7-years-old when he found something he didn’t know he was looking for.
Cunningham was by any standard an active child.
He was diagnosed in utero with bilateral fibular hemimelia and born without the fibula bone in either leg. Just after his first birthday, his legs were amputated below the knee, and he received his first sets of prosthetics. With them, he followed many of the sporting milestones for a kid, playing youth soccer and ice skating with family.
But at seven, Cunningham got his first chance to see the athletic opportunities that lay ahead for people with limb differences. He and his family traveled to New York for a run clinic hosted by the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
Cunningham, with his elementary school exuberance and legs made for everyday use, had fun and had his eyes opened.
“I had gone through my whole life not seeing another amputee, or not even having anyone who would really understand me, that wasn’t working at the prosthetics place where I was getting my legs,” Cunningham said last week. “But once I started to meet people, make friends, go to events, it really opened my eyes to the possibilities. It made me feel a lot more comfortable with how my life was, and I’ve made some lifelong friends because of it.”
A Paralympic dream
Now a junior at Springfield, Cunningham has taken that inspiration and quite literally run with it. He’s a multi-sport athlete with dreams of reaching the Paralympics. A member of the Cougars’ swim team, he’s a valuable cog this spring in Springfield’s top boys 4 x 400 relay, which ran at Penn Relays and Delco Championships.
Along the way, Cunningham has executed a full-circle reversal of context. Once upon a time, being the only person without prosthetics at a meet felt isolating, singling him out as being different from his peers. Now, when it’s at a venue like Franklin Field before thousands of spectators, the runner whose Instagram handle is @jack_thebladerunner wears his uniqueness with pride.
Sports have been a big part of Cunningham’s development, and there’s little he hasn’t tried. On the track, he’s settled into the long sprints, though he’s contested field events and the jumps. He played soccer with able-bodied kids through middle school before jumping to cross country, and he’s done powerlifting and triathlons.
He used to swim with the Ridley Rays YMCA team and still trains in the summer at Springfield Swim Club. He spent last weekend in Cincinnati at the Bill Keating Jr. Memorial ParaSwimming Open in Cincinnati, a meet attended by some of the U.S.’s top paraswimmers.
Classified as an S9 swimmer, it’s Cunningham’s primary focus to chase a Paralympic spot at the moment. Sports have long given him a place where he feels comfortable and fully himself.
“It allowed me to just live a normal life, not really feel like I was disabled in any way,” he said. “It allowed me to make friends, reach out, do different things, be athletic. And it made me feel like I wasn’t held back by anything.”
‘Best version of myself’
Swimming, which doesn’t require adaptive devices, offers an extra layer of freedom from the track, where finding the right prosthesis is a costly process, one that isn’t covered by insurance. Cunningham, who would grow out of prosthetics yearly when he was younger, went through several versions before settling on his current set, posterior-mounted carbon composite Cheetah blades made by Ossur and with Nike soles at the base.
Cunningham and his family have worked with various foundations for grants to cover costs. He also has long been involved with CAF, able to mentor younger athletes in the way he once was.
Beyond his limb difference, Cunningham was born in trying circumstances, as the lone survivor of a triplet pregnancy. One of his siblings died in utero. His brother Liam, born with heart defects, died at 26 days, a day after Jack came home from the hospital.
From his first conscious awareness of it all, it’s given Jack a sense of purpose.
“I think it makes it more meaningful,” he said. “I like to think that I’m trying to be the best version of myself and make my brothers proud and try to do the best I can do.”
Cunningham’s outlook on life pays dividends for his Springfield teammates.
Longtime Cougars head coach Barry Foster has worked with Cunningham the past four years. Foster’s career away from coaching has focused on differently able populations, mainly those with mental developmental challenges.
Outlook to emulate
In the way Cunningham has overcome his physical challenges, Foster sees an example he wants his athletes to emulate. That’s why last year, Foster gave Cunningham the program’s Dan Curran Jr. Cougar Courage Award, recognizing the effect he has on those around him.
“If you didn’t look at him, you wouldn’t know his situation from the way he is every day,” Foster said. “His life is just his life. He does everything … and he doesn’t let his disability impede him from doing the things he wants. He does it courageously, and he takes tasks head on.”
This spring, he placed 17th at Delcos in the 400 in 52.37 seconds. He also helped the Cougars finish fourth in the 4 x 400 relay. He was 13th at the Central League Championships.
His spot in Penn Relays marked meaningful family history: his grandfather and uncle had run at Penn. Cunningham was able to follow their path despite the sizeable headwinds he’d been born into.
While swimming is one avenue for his sporting passions, track may be the one that gets him to college. He’s looking at college track programs in the area, and he’s made contact with the para track and field squad at the University of Alabama that is one of the leaders in the sport.
Exceeding expectations is something Cunningham has done his entire life. Doctors told his family he may never walk when he was born. At every stage, he’s found a way toward the far end of the range of possibilities. He hopes that modeling that can be inspirational for others.
“It was like, ‘Oh, it’ll be lucky if you can walk straight,’ ” he said. “And then it’s like, ‘well, now you’re running in one of the most insane meets you’ll ever see.’ It was an honor to represent what other kids can do.”
