Kara Hinton | Staff Writer

To compete in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics was a lifelong dream for many athletes around the world. However, for a select group of athletes, a slightly different—but equally significant—dream awaited them this summer.

Many people seem to forget that aside from the well-known Olympics, the Paralympics also celebrate the accolade of athletes who have earned the opportunity to represent their country and be considered the best in the world. These athletes have gone through incredible amounts of adversity from a lack of vision to the loss of limbs to the suffering of traumatic brain injuries. Some of these disabilities have been with the athletes since birth; others acquired through military service or automobile accidents. Regardless of the cause of disability, Paralympic athletes have transformed their physical impairments into unique opportunities, so that they too are able to compete at their respective sports’ highest level.

Until his freshman year of high school, Trenten Merrill lived the life of any able-bodied teenage boy in San Juan Capistrano, California. Prior to entering high school, Merrill knew that he wanted to compete on the track and field team, but little did he know that a traumatic injury would shortly change his life forever.

At the age of 14, Merrill was biking with a friend, when a car suddenly collided with them. The car crushed Merrill’s foot, but he didn’t think much of it at the time.

“I honestly thought that I had just broken my foot,” Merrill said. “I was pretty calm inside, and I was more worried about my friend and what had happened to him.”

After months of trying to save his foot, doctors came to the conclusion that his leg needed to be amputated from just below the knee. With the amputation came a new and different life with a prosthetic leg.

“I was surprised that I was able to walk right away,” Merrill said. “It was more about getting comfortable with putting pressure on my foot until I could actually run. I could still do a lot of the stuff I used to do.”

However, with that confidence also came doubt. He no longer saw track and field as a possibility. He didn’t even know what a para-athlete was. It wasn’t until his third year of community college that he learned about the Paralympics.

One year after discovering the Paralympics, Merrill made the decision to transfer from his local community college to the University of Colorado at Boulder. He had a good friend on the football team who convinced him to make the move. Merrill was also hoping to compete on Boulder’s track and field team. For weeks, he called the coach and heard nothing back from them.

“I’m pretty sure I called the coach every single day for a month, and I thought it was strange that I wasn’t hearing back from them,” Merrill said. He came to the realization that he probably wasn’t going to be on the team, so he began training by himself.

“Through this time, I was in constant prayer. I knew that in whatever I was doing, it was all for the kingdom of God,” said Merrill.

During his time at Boulder, Merrill listened to a lot of Christian music, enjoying musicians such as Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae through the music streaming service Pandora.

“I remember an Azusa Pacific University ad popping up while I was on Pandora,” Merrill said. “I hadn’t heard too much of that school, but I was looking to transfer to a school in California, so I did some research. I would watch YouTube videos about Bryan Clay, who was a gold medalist Olympian and who attended Azusa.”

One day, in the midst of his research about APU, Merrill went into his closet to grab a shirt before heading to the gym.

“I had way too many clothes for college, and I remember so clearly pulling out of my huge pile of clothes an Azusa Pacific Track and Field shirt randomly. If that wasn’t divine intervention, then I didn’t know what was,” he said.

Merrill was convinced he had to look further into transferring to APU, and he eventually reached out to Azusa’s head track and field coach, Kevin Reid.
“When I first got to know him, it was a random phone call,” Reid said. “He called and asked if we would be open to having a para-athlete on the team.”

Reid had never had this question before, so he called a couple of friends who were connected to the Olympic Training Center. All of the coaches knew of Merrill and gave great recommendations. They told Reid to not do anything differently for him and that he could do anything that anybody else could do. Merrill was immediately instated to the team. He fit in well with the other athletes, competing in both sprints and jumps.

While growing as an athlete, Merrill was also growing spiritually: “It was like I was on such a spiritual high. I had such a blast my first year, and I knew that God had called me to go to Azusa.”

Right before his last semester at APU, Merrill knew that he needed to accelerate as a track and field athlete, so he moved to Georgia to train full time.

“My main purpose of going there was for praise and worship to God. I was going to be like a worship leader at church and praise him because all of my efforts were music to His ears,” acknowledged Merrill.“The professors made it possible for me to finish up my schooling with online classes, and I will forever be grateful for that,” Merrill said.

From there, his career had only just begun. Merrill made his first U.S. national team in 2015. At the International Paralympics Committee (IPC) World Championships in Qatar, Merrill ran a personal best in the 100 meters and landed a silver medal in the 4×100 meters.

“After making the team, the dream of the Paralympics became even more of a reality,” Merrill said.

Later in the year, Merrill was on his way to the U.S. national competition in the long jump. He knew that this event was his best chance at competing in the 2016 Paralympics. He won the event at nationals, but his dream was finally realized when he heard his name called to be a part of the Paralympics for Team USA.

At this year’s Paralympics, Merrill came up just short of landing a spot on the medal stand, with a final jump of 6.84 meters. The bronze medalist, German athlete Felix Streng, jumped 7.13 meters, less than 0.3 meters over Merrill’s best jump.

“I hit a personal best for my first jump. From that point, all I wanted to do was just have fun. The crowd was just so loud that I felt it in my bones like never before,” Merrill said.

Despite the buzz and craze of being in Brazil and being a part of Team USA, Merrill never forgot why he was at the Paralympics.

Merrill makes it very clear how much he depends on his faith, with APU’s motto, “God First,” emblazoned on his prosthetic leg and tattooed on his chest as a constant reminder of why he competes.

“I had idolized athletics, and it was affecting my relationship with him,” he said. “The tattoo is so simple and small, but I want to always put God in front of everything else.”

With such an impressive array of accomplishments at the age of 24, Merrill still has such a bright future ahead of him.

“Whether he gets a medal or not, he will always be to me what we call a ‘hat hanger.’ We’re going to hang our hats and say ‘That’s one of ours.’ I think he’s probably done more for athletics at APU in terms of opening the door to para-athletes,” Gary Pine, Azusa Pacific’s athletic director said.

Both Reid and Pine also commended Merrill’s attitude and perspective.

“He is always willing to do more. He is one of those rare athletes that you have to pull back on rather than having to push him,” Reid said.

Merrill looks forward to next year’s World Championships in London, and more importantly, the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo. With all of these athletic goals in mind,

Merrill only has just one ultimate goal in mind:
“In whatever I do, I am seeking the kingdom of God first. He has called me a champion, and I plan on succeeding for His glory.”