Samuel Grewe, 21, of Middlebury has been named the USATF Indiana Athlete of the Month for November 2019. Grewe is a junior at Notre Dame University where he competes on the track & field team and is studying pre-medicine. He contracted osteosarcoma when he was 13 which resulted in his right leg being amputated below his knee. He competes in the T63 classification (above the knee amputee). On November 14, Grewe won the high jump at the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai, UAE. His winning clearance of 6 feet 1 inch established a new championship record. It was his third straight world title having won in 2015 (at the age of 17) and 2017. At the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio he finished second earning the silver medal. He is the world record holder in the event with a mark of 6 feet 2.75 inches from the 2019 Parapan American Games in Lima, Peru.
Just before Christmas in 2011, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer that resulted in the amputation of his right leg after spreading to his knee. Two days before his amputation took place in 2012, the University of Notre Dame football team adopted Grewe, supporting and allowing him to be on the field for games during their undefeated regular season run to the BCS National Championships game. Nearly a year later, Grewe was cancer free. The experience inspired him to return to athletics in which he discovered the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association (GLASA), a Paralympic sport club based in Lake Forest, Illinois. In less than a year, Grewe progressed from his first Paralympic competition at the 2015 Desert Challenge Games to representing Team USA at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where he upset the field to win the men’s high jump world title....Son of Randall and Michelle Grewe…Has one older sister, Audrey…Hobbies include playing lacrosse, basketball and football… Aspires to go into biomedical engineering with hopes of working to develop prosthetics…Favorite movie is Forrest Gump…Favorite athlete is Russell Westbrook.