Sydney Satchell was 22 years old when she had to make the decision to amputate her lower left leg.
Satchell had been in a car accident in January of 2015. After many surgeries and multiple weeks in the hospital, there was discussion about another surgery. Satchell was in pain, and when she was asked what she wanted to do, she unhesitatingly told them to cut it off.
The Windsor native had just graduated from Howard University. She had played Division I lacrosse there, and was a three-sport athlete at The Ethel Walker School in Simsbury. It was not a decision she came to lightly.
But once she did, she accepted it. Her prosthetist asked her if she had ever played volleyball before; she had not. There was a sport called sitting volleyball and it was played at the highest level in the Paralympics, she learned. Satchell was intrigued and sent off an email to the sport’s National Team Development Program at the University of Central Oklahoma.
“It was an opportunity to try something new and be active again,” she said. “I had never played, but I thought, ‘I’m an athlete. I’ll figure it out.’”
In 2016, she moved to Oklahoma. She was crushed when she didn’t make the U.S. women’s Paralympic team in 2021, but she redoubled her efforts, and in July she earned her spot. The U.S. women are the two-time defending gold medalists, and they’ll go for a third straight title in Paris, beginning Aug. 30.
Satchell got the phone call in her living room, the same place she got the last call telling her she didn’t make it.
“I thought I would boohoo cry,” she said. “I was in shock – ‘It’s really happening.’ I couldn’t even cry. My mouth was open for several minutes. I FaceTimed my mom and grandma. I screamed and said, ‘Mommy, we’re going to Paris!’”
Sitting volleyball is played six players to a side, and on a smaller court (10 meters by six meters) than standing volleyball, with a shorter net (about three feet high). When players hit the ball, they must remain in contact with the court and standing, rising or taking steps is not allowed.
“We use whatever limbs we have, and we scoot,” Satchell said. “We have some teammates who have all four limbs but not full strength or use of one of their lower extremities.”
At 5-foot-2, Satchell is a libero, or defensive specialist.
She had watched volleyball at Howard and played in gym class but never played organized volleyball before. She played soccer, basketball and lacrosse growing up in Windsor and at Ethel Walker.
“Why do I like it?” she asked. “There’s something about volleyball, when I used to watch it, point for point, it was a fast game. It felt like they were dunking the whole time. These big powerful swings. I was captivated by what was going on. You couldn’t look away. I fell in love and enjoyed sitting (volleyball) for those same reasons – the pace, the power of the game, the ability to use our bodies in a brand new way.
“Someone asked me, ‘If you could get your foot back, would you?’ I said no. I have more zeal for life than I did before. I have more joy.”
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