Teammates pay tribute to newly retired six-time Paralympian Mike Whitehead

OTTAWA – Zak Madell, Canada’s super scorer on the national wheelchair rugby team, admits he doesn’t know where to start in his tribute to teammate and recently retired six-time Paralympian Mike Whitehead.

‘’Not only was he a great teammate to all, but he was a force to be reckoned with on the court,” said Madell, himself a four-time Paralympian. ‘’When I first started, he was often the person to turn to if you ever needed a hand with fixing equipment, or needed to borrow a spare part.

‘’The latter happened countless times, and he would always graciously help out.”

Whitehead, 49, earned two silver medals and a bronze in six Paralympic Games (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024). He was also at six world championships (one gold, one silver and two bronze) and three Parapan Am Games (one gold, two silver).

“It was on my mind, and in my heart for a couple years,’’ said Whitehead, injured in a car crash in 1999 at age 24. “The last few years my body was like ‘hey you know, I’ve been good to you.’ But trying to play with the best in the world for 24 years I started to feel the toll in the later part of my career. I realized there’s pressure and there’s a lot of work.

‘’In our last game against France (at Paris 2024), I said to the guys, it’s been a real pleasure and I loved it.”

As is the case with Madell, Whitehead has played with several of his teammates for over a decade. That includes co-captains Trevor Hirschfield, recently named Canada’s head coach after five Paralympic Games, and Patrice Dagenais (a four-time Paralympian).

“I was lucky enough to spend my career playing with Mike on a lineup that has seen lots of success over the years,’’ said Hirschfield. “He had some silky smooth mitts. He managed to catch everything I threw to him and made me look better while doing it.
‘’It was a pleasure to go to work with Mike for two decades, I learned a lot from him and I am thankful for his impact on my career.”

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Dagenais echoed those sentiments.

‘’Mike was a great teammate,” said Dagenais. ‘’He had a positive impact on and off the court for myself and many other athletes in our program. He knew how to keep things loose and always took the time to chat with the young athletes of our sport.
‘’It was a real pleasure competing alongside him all these years and I wish him all the best in his next endeavours.”

It’s that camaraderie that Whitehead says he will miss the most.

“A blanket memory is the bus rides after the big wins, just the vibrations from that are still with me,” recalled Whitehead, proud father of Addison, a bio-medical engineering student, and Avary, who is headed to college in the Chicago area where he’ll also play lacrosse. ‘’Especially against the USA. There were tough losses too. I can remember crying in the shower (after making) a crucial turnover.

‘’I’m just a small town kid from Ontario (Harrow, near Windsor), and I saw the world after falling in love with wheelchair rugby at my very first practice.”

Whitehead, who includes former national team stars David Willsie and Garett Hickling among his mentors when he began, has also started coaching. He coached Canada’s wheelchair rugby team at the Toronto Invictus Games and at the 2021 Low-Point Tournament in Switzerland. He is also an accomplished public speaker.

His teammates were quick to note that Whitehead possesses quite a sense of humour, and the players needed to be on their guard.

‘’Sometimes he would land a well-timed joke, or other times he snuck into a hotel room to lay some sort of trap for when the new kid returned. This turned into a prank war that went on for many years after the initial incident.

‘’We still may not have seen the end of that one.”