Some stories don’t begin at the hardest moment. They begin with what comes after it. Scott Martin was 35 years old, coaching at the collegiate level, rubbing elbows with national team players at a Nike camp outside Chicago, when his body quietly started failing him. A fever. A bad night. A doctor who said drink Gatorade and sent him home. By the next morning, he was in a coma. A month later, he woke up as a quad amputee.

If you’re listening to figure out how someone survives that, you will. But what this conversation is really about is everything Scott carried in the years that followed. The way he worked instead of grieving. The discrimination he faced trying to return to coaching. The night he lost a $10 million malpractice trial, pulled into his garage, and sat alone in the silence with thoughts he doesn’t sugarcoat. And then, instead, made a list.

That list became a road. The road eventually led to a coaching job he worked for free, five adopted children from Romania and Ethiopia, two state championships with kids no one believed in, a soulmate he’d let go at 19 and found again 40 years later, and a book called Play From Your Heart published by Simon and Schuster. Scott didn’t heal in a straight line. None of us do. But he kept choosing the next thing, and this is what that looked like.

What You’ll Hear:

• The moment Scott realized in his hospital bed that his life as he knew it was over, and how his mind responded
• Why he buried himself in work for years after his amputation, and what that avoidance was protecting him from
• The night he lost everything at once, and the choice he made in his garage that changed the direction of his life
• How a news segment about adoption pulled him toward five children he never planned for
• The parallel story of coaching a team of overlooked 12-year-olds to a state championship, and what they gave back to him
• Why Scott believes the pieces of his life fit now, even with all the gaps and loss and detours in between

Guest Bio:

Scott Martin is a soccer coach, teacher, author, and father of five adopted children. After becoming a quad amputee at 35 following a near-fatal illness, he rebuilt his life through coaching, fatherhood, and eventually writing Play From Your Heart, a memoir published by Simon and Schuster. Scott lives in Wisconsin, coaches at the club level, and is passionate about using his story to support the disability community and anyone who has had to start over. His book is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold. Reach Scott at reader.playfromyourheart@gmail.com (mailto:reader.playfromyourheart@gmail.com) .

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life after amputation, rebuilding identity after trauma, disability and resilience, overcoming depression, quad amputee recovery, coping with grief and loss, starting over in your thirties, adoption as transformation, identity after illness, shame and disability