Jaime Baltazar

Jaime Baltazar’s mother instilled in him the importance of fostering his community from a young age. Back of the Yards provided the opportunity to strengthen this by allowing him the opportunity to participate in various community outreach programs. During his high school years he served as an altar boy, was an after school tutor, and volunteered to feed his community of Chicago. These opportunities allowed Jaime to reach his full potential, by receiving a scholarship from the peace and education coalition to attend Archbishop Quigley. It was during these high school years that he would become wheelchair bound due to an occurrence of street violence. Rather than succumb to hatred of his neighborhood and hometown, he remembered his foundational framework of strength in community. He utilized this to not only thrive himself, but also to instill in others this same positive and powerful framework of community.

After becoming a member of the disabled community, he went on to the University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana to major in Sports Management, and minoring in Sociology. He has gone on to be the chairman of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, and has played, as well as coached, with the adaptive sports community on a global level. While he is a professional coach for the Marine corps Wounded Warrior program since 2013, he spends his off time volunteering in multiple adaptive sports programs, in order to create a positive environment for others to strive and reach their full potential. He continues to live on the values the church and community has taught him about the power and strength of community.

Jaime currently has two big goals. One is to start a nonprofit that finds those who are disabled and feeling disconnected from the community, and provide them with various adaptive equipment, so that they can have the opportunity to thrive as he has. The second is that he is hoping to achieve more equality and opportunities for women in the world of adaptive sports.