In Sports and in Law, Paralympian Attorneys Show Drive for Excellence
August 10, 2021
Matt Simpson competed in the goalball event at the 2019 Parapan American Games in Lima, Peru.
Now that the Summer Olympics are over, other athletes are gearing up for the Paralympic Games opening on August 24 in Tokyo. One of those competitors is Sidley Austin LLP associate Matthew Simpson, who will represent the United States in goalball. Simpson won a silver medal in Rio for Team USA in 2016. This year, he hopes to bring home the gold.
Born with a congenital retina disease that left him visually impaired at an early age, Simpson was introduced to goalball at age 10 when he attended a United States Association of Blind Athletes sports camp. “I just loved the game,” he recalls. “I really wanted to do team sports.”
Goalball involves two teams of three players attempting to score goals by throwing a three-pound, bell-bearing ball — approximately the size of a basketball — across a volleyball-size court and defending shots with their bodies. To ensure that there’s no sight advantage from any of the players, everyone wears eyeshades that completely obscure their vision. The game was created in 1946 by Austrian Hanz Lorenzen and German Sepp Reindle after World War II to rehabilitate soldiers who’d been dramatically blinded during the war. The Paralympic Games debuted goalball in 1976.
Simpson calls the sport “reverse dodgeball.” “You’re hitting your body to keep the ball out of your goal,” he explains. “All three players are working together to put their bodies in the path of this three-pound ball going 50 miles per hour.”
“It’s definitely a fast-paced game. There’s a 10-second shot clock. [It’s] a very physical contact sport, even though both teams are on their ends of the court. The ball is very heavy and fast. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart,” adds Simpson, who specializes in white collar government litigation and investigations at Sidley.
Simpson isn’t the only Paralympic athlete at Sidley. Beth Hardcastle, an associate in the firm’s health care practice, was part of the United States swim team in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle and backstroke events at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
At age 14, a car accident left Hardcastle partially paralyzed from the chest down. She started swimming initially as part of her rehabilitation. “I just love the freedom of the water,” says Hardcastle, who played softball and volleyball before the accident. “Shortly after I was injured, I was invited to participate in a local sporting event. I really loved the competition and meeting all these other athletes with disabilities.”
Even though Hardcastle hadn’t been swimming for long, she met a few coaches who encouraged her to train and then qualify for the Paralympics. “In the pool, my legs mostly drag behind me, and a lot of the swimming is really all in the arms. Imagine someone tying your feet together and putting a weight on them. Then have you swim. That’s how it feels.”
As Paralympians, both Hardcastle and Simpson learned that they have the drive to defy the odds. “Once you find an outlet, where the only thing that’s holding you back is you, you desire to be the best and learn to put in the work,” Simpson says.
“Being an elite athlete before I started my legal career has definitely contributed to my success as a lawyer,” says Hardcastle, now retired from competitive swimming. “Both require a lot of time, energy, and motivation. That drive I had with competitive swimming has been put in my favor in my [legal] career.”
In terms of juggling the demands of being a world-class athlete and an attorney, Simpson says that it’s a matter of discipline. “There’s always going to be a little sacrifice on both sides,” he says. “But ultimately, it’s just prioritizing and staying motivated. You do what you need to do to pursue excellence at both.”
