From Denver to Paris: DU’s Ties to the Paralympic Games

Professors Jamie Shapiro and Artur Poczwardowski pose for a photo at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea. Shapiro is now working with individual athletes who will compete in the 2024 Paralympic Summer Games.

Denver and Paris may be nearly 5,000 miles apart, but the distance doesn’t minimize the connections that the University of Denver has to the Paralympic Games in Paris—and beyond.

From mental performance consulting to working as a member of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and competing in the Games themselves, the past and present ties between the two are evident.

Here are just a few of the faculty and alumni who have been involved in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games over the years.

Lacey Henderson (BA, ’11)

A competitor in the 2016 Paralympic Games, Henderson is now a sport and performance psychology practitioner and an advocate for people with disabilities.

Henderson will also be one of two in-country hosts for NBC during the upcoming Paris Paralympic Games that begin on Aug. 28.

Henderson, who retired from competition this year, is the founder and owner of Parallel Performance Consulting. She has is also a public speaker, has given TED Talks and previously hosted a podcast called “Picked Last in Gym Class.”

When she was nine years old, her leg was amputated six inches above the knee after she was diagnosed with a type of cancer called synovial sarcoma—but that certainly didn’t deter her from athletics.

Henderson earning a cheerleading scholarship to DU, graduating in 2011 with bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and French and a minor in international studies with an emphasis on health, development and gender. 

Her track and field career began after she won a bet against her dad, T.J., a national decathlon champion who competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials for pole vaulting. 

In 2016, Henderson placed eighth in the women’s long jump T42 (a disability sport classification) and placed 10th in the 100-meter T42. She earned a silver medal at the 2019 Parapan American Games in Peru. 

Professors Jamie Shapiro and Artur Poczwardowski

What started as a coffee meeting in 2014 has developed into nearly a decade of working with Paralympic athletes for Shapiro and Poczwardowski.

Being within driving distance of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) headquarters in Colorado Springs, the two psychology professors were asked to meet with USOPC officials about consulting with U.S. Paralympic teams and their athletes.

At that time, there were not many mental health practitioners dedicated to the Paralympics specifically, and so the work Shapiro and Poczwardowski were asked to do would eventually help build a foundation of information and resources for their colleagues and elevated them to “experts” on the topic in the field, Shapiro says.

“I think (the work we do is) so important because it has been under resourced and not published about or given as much attention in our field,” says Shapiro, who is also the co-director of the Master of Arts in Sport and Performance Psychology program in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology.

Shapiro and Poczwardowski attended the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea while they were working with the U.S. Para Alpine Skiing and Para Snowboard teams.

While they are no longer “embedded” with specific teams, they both are still involved in different ways with the Paralympians and adaptive athletes.

Shapiro provides mental performance consulting to three summer athletes who will compete in the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris—all of whom she’s worked with for the last five years.

Poczwardowski is currently a mental performance consultant at an adaptive sports center in Alabama, working with younger athletes who may not be competing for another four or eight years.

Jessica Bartley (MA ’08, PsyD ’12)

Bartley spent nearly a decade teaching at the university, most recently as a clinical assistant and associate professor in GSPP’s sport and performance psychology program—the same one she earned a master’s degree from.

Bartley is now the senior director of psychological services at the USOPC, where she leads and oversees the delivery of all psychological services and resources to Team USA athletes. Prior to that, she worked as the director of mental health services.

While working on her master’s degree at DU, Bartley was one of 13 students enrolled in the program—the first time the degree had been offered.