Emily Hoskins at Madison Community Center
The two-time Paralympic gold medalist is a licensed professional counselor in Nashville. But she’s also the coach of the Music City Thunder, a wheelchair basketball team under the umbrella of ABLE Youth, a local nonprofit that provides opportunities for youth who use wheelchairs to learn independence skills via sports.
In addition to coaching both the junior division team (kids 13 and under) and the varsity squad (age 14 through high school graduation), Hoskins handles all the administrative duties for the two teams, including communication with parents.
ABLE Youth operates as a two-person outfit — just Hoskins and executive director Amy Saffell, with the help of volunteers. But that doesn’t pay the bills. That’s why Hoskins refers to her 13-year post-wheelchair-basketball career as a therapist as her “real job.” Plus, Hoskins’ husband, local musician Cody Campbell, doesn’t have a typical 9-to-5, adding another layer to the daily chaos.
“It’s a struggle sometimes,” Hoskins tells the Scene at Madtown Coffee in Madison. “It takes a lot of coordination.”
Hoskins was born with a cancerous tumor on her spinal cord, which caused her to be paralyzed from the waist down. She grew up in Illinois, but traveled to Tennessee to receive treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Hoskins was deemed cancer-free at 13 — the same year she discovered wheelchair sports. She started playing wheelchair basketball with the St. Louis Rolling Rams, a junior program near her hometown, before being recruited to play for the University of Illinois. She ultimately won four national championships during five collegiate seasons.
Following her trophy-cabinet-filling college career, Hoskins tried out for the U.S. Women’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team. She was painfully close to making Team USA’s roster ahead of the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens — 12 players would be traveling to Greece for the tournament, and Hoskins was on standby as the first alternate. Less than 10 days before the team was supposed to leave, Hoskins got a call saying she was needed to fulfill the final roster spot. Team USA went on to win gold — America’s first in the event since 1988 — and in 2025, the whole squad was inducted into the United States Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame.
Hoskins felt lucky to be along for the ride in 2004. The 2008 Paralympics in Beijing were different. In wheelchair basketball, the starting positions are broken down into numbered classifications rather than traditional roles like point guard or power forward. Due to her form of disability, Hoskins is categorized as Class 1.0, and she was Team USA’s starter in that slot in Beijing.
Emily Hoskins at Madison Community Center
Hoskins continued playing in adult leagues after her time with the national team was over, but finding a local team can be difficult with organizations spread across the country.
“Wheelchair sports in general can be challenging, because first of all, you have people with disabilities being the minority,” Hoskins says. “But then also disabled women, we’re a minority already. Then you take [the number] of women who want to play wheelchair basketball, that’s a smaller minority in itself. So really — and this is true for men, women and kids — it is difficult to find teams that don’t involve travel for a lot of families.
“I have families that drive two hours to practice every week,” she continues. “We’re Nashville-based, but I have families that live in Alabama. I have another family that lives in Mississippi.”
The experience can be transformative, and Hoskins wants to give as many kids as possible that chance.
“You see their eyes get wide,” Hoskins says. “I can say, from personal experience growing up, most of these kids, especially if they’re from a small town like I was, there aren’t always other kids with disabilities, and so you often feel like the weird one. You feel singled out, and going in and getting to see all these kids in wheelchairs. … It’s life-changing.”
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