Can't hold back David Mayo

Meyla T. Hooker
News Journal correspondent

In 1978, David Mayo was a 16- year-old star baseball player at Washington High, a champion water skier and a football and basketball stud among the neighborhood kids.

These days, Mayo still is winning championships, just in a different sport and in a completely different manner.

In Boca Raton on April 7, he won the men's "C" singles and "D" doubles titles at the United States Tennis Association's 2002 Florida Open.

In November in Pembroke Pines, Mayo captured the Florida Sunshine Sectional Men's "B" singles crown. This weekend he competes in the Southern Adult Wheelchair Cajun Classic in Baton Rouge, La.

"Believe it or not, there is a professional division for wheelchair players," Mayo, 39, said. "And those guys are very good."

Mayo, who was destined for greatness after his sophomore year at Washington, almost saw all of his hopes and dreams come crashing down along with his body.

Mayo and his family  were on a whitewater rafting trip in Idaho that summer. And while mountain climbing, Mayo slipped and fell 50 feet straight down.

"I should have been killed for sure," Mayo recalled. "They didn't think I was going to live."

In a rescue effort worthy of consideration from the television show Rescue 911, Mayo was placed carefully on a board. His family got through on their radio to a pilot flying nearby. The pilot agreed to daringly land at the top of the mountain on a pasture, where Mayo had been hauled.

"I was in and out of shock," Mayo said. "When we arrived at the hospital in Idaho Falls, I was in such bad condition that they said they could not treat me."

Mayo then was flown quickly to Salt Lake City, where doctors performed major back surgery. He had severed his spine, and doctors had to fuse part it together from bone spurs in his hip.

"Lying in the hospital, with the doctor telling you that you have severed your spine, is devastating, to say the least," Mayo said. "You lose all hope that you'll ever be able to play sports or have fun again."

But Mayo had been given a second chance, and he realized that surviving the almost fatal fall was nothing less than miraculous.

"I love sports, and that doesn't change just because you break your back," Mayo said. "That was a crucial time in my life, and it really renewed my relationship with the Lord. The decision to make peace with him really allowed me to go forward in a positive way rather than negative."

After graduating from Washington, Mayo went on to Pensacola Junior College and eventually got a degree in communications from West Florida. He is the general manager of the local Christian network WHBR-TV.

"In the early years after UWF, I would play pool, ping-pong and swim around," he said. "Now I am a nationally ranked table tennis player and recently swam 4 miles in the annual Pensacola Bay Race."

About 10 years ago, Mayo met Beverly, the woman who became the love of his life.

"I met a woman who loves me so much," Mayo said. "I never thought this would happen. She is just great. Now I am a stepfather to a 17-year-old, which adds another challenge to my life."

"David is my best friend," Beverly said. "Our eyes first met a pizza party thrown by the radio station 10 years ago."

Beverly said that Mayo's contagious personality made it easy for her to fall in love.

"I was never scared to be with him," she said. "Once it started getting serious, I began to learn more about his condition and truly understand it.

"My friends always ask if I feel like a nurse with David. They just don't understand that I have to literally take vitamins to keep up with him. I hate to admit it, but he can live without me. Being around him makes you forget that he is in a chair."

Mayo took Beverly and her son, then 7, to the fair for their first date.

"We have been hooked and inseparable since then," she said. "We have been married for 7 1/2 years now, and he has been a terrific stepfather to Don. Him being in a chair has not stopped my son from experiencing those great father/son things."

According to Beverly, the only unfortunate thing about their union has been their inability to have a child together.

"It's not like everything is perfect," she said. "After five years of fertility treatments, we realized that it's just not going to happen. So there have been sad days, but we are looking into adoption.

"But when I look at this man that I can't stand being apart from, I just count my blessings each day."

Because of the couple's love for tennis, Mayo contacted certified wheelchair coach Rene Grifol a year ago to help him prepare for competitive play.

"The big difference between an able-body person and a wheelchair player is knowing to move the chair," Grifol explained. "Once David got a sports chair, it really helped him.

"David has a great heart. He is a fighter and a winner in everything he does. Now, when an able-body person tells me it's too hard, I put them in a wheelchair and tell them the amazing stories of those players."

In addition to tennis, Mayo and his wife go skiing every year, are involved in the Big Brother/Big Sister program, have been skydiving, scuba diving and sailing.

Perhaps even more amazing, two years ago Mayo went whitewater rafting on West Virginia's Upper Gauley River, which he called the most intense river on the East Coast.

"It has been quite a journey," Mayo said. "The experience of it is from the inside out. I try and have joy on the inside, no matter what is going on outside. I am a Christian and still very much believe in the miraculous. Inside I still see myself running and living life to the fullest."