Famously anonymous: The Chris Dodds story

Chris Dodds is the most famous person at USU that you’ve never heard of.

Dodds has been a staple on the U.S. National Goalball Team since 2001, just after the Paralympics in Sydney, Australia. He won a bronze medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece. And last summer, Dodds was named the best defender in the world.

Who knew?

A lot of people around the world. Maybe a few of the 70,000-plus people that watched the Paralympics in Athens. Chinese spectators at a tournament Dodds played in Beijing with the U.S. National Team. Even some of his training partners at the Olympic Training Center, where he’s trained with Olympians and Paralympians for almost seven years, probably are aware of Dodds’ achievements in goalball.

“(The Paralympics are) parallel to the Olympics,” Dodds said. “You do the same training. You train-I’ve trained with Olympians all over, speed skaters, bobsledders and power lifters.”

But the Paralympics are largely ignored by the American sporting media.

“They’re too busy doing poker -celebrity poker,” Dodds said.

He said many of the questions he’s asked by foreign media are jabs at the ignorance of many Americans about goalball. The lack of interest in the sport in the U.S. also means the players, like Dodds, don’t make money playing it – many of their foreign competitors do. With the lack of coverage, it also makes it hard for goalballers to make any endorsement dollars, like many of their Olympic counterparts.

“It’s hard to convince a company to let you do their advertising, as a Paralympic sport, because they don’t see it on TV,” Dodds said.

Being a family man-his wife Brandi will graduate from USU in May, and they have a daughter, Kenadi -the expenses of playing goalball at a high level start becoming prohibitive and have Dodds thinking this year’s Paralympics may be his last, although he feels like he has a lot left in the tank.

But long before he had a family to worry about, Dodds was just a young athlete looking for a sport he could play competitively despite his continually deteriorating vision.

Before finding goalball, Dodds played competitive baseball. One year in a championship game, he was playing outfield and it became obvious he’d have to find a new sport.

“A ball got hit out there and it was one those where I didn’t see the ball, and there was no sun to blame it on,” he said. “So that kind of lost the game for me and it kind of embarrassed me.”

Dodds switched to something with a bigger ball that he could see, soccer. Right before trying out for his high school team, he started having trouble, and he realized he always would, so Dodds switched to a sport where he wouldn’t have to worry about seeing the ball.

“At least this will allow me to be competitive and I won’t have an excuse that I can’t see the ball,” Dodds said.

He’s been playing goalball competitively since 1999, when he played in junior national tournaments. He was invited to the U.S. National Team try out in 2000. Coaches saw potential in him, and Dodds went to the national camp and ended up making the team, he said.

Although he’s played in Brazil, Spain, Lithuania, China and Sweden, where he’ll compete this summer, his best moment was being on the podium in Athens and getting his bronze medal.

“I’ve been on the medal stands at the Pan Am Games, but just being at the big show, you’re televised all over the world, except the U.S.,” Dodds said.

-da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu