For the latest UNIQLO Interview we spoke to Karin Korb of the USA, winner of the 2019 UNIQLO Spirit Award and currently a member of the ITF’s Wheelchair Tennis Player Council.

A former gymnast, Karin Korb was injured in a vaulting accident at the age of 17, but it took 10 years for her to discover the world of wheelchair tennis. It was a discovery that would change the course of her personal and professional life and would see Korb move from being a champion on the court to becoming a champion of access, advocacy, diversity and equality off the court.

“I was down in Florida and working as a criminal defence paralegal by day and by night I was working at a super alternative nightclub. Anyway, the bouncer at the door of this nightclub, Bill Howard, came to me one evening and said we ought to play tennis,” Korb recalls. “I had never played any type of wheelchair sport at this time and was living in this ‘ableist’ world, but I started playing in my day chair and about three weeks later Bill bought me this magazine, ‘Sports ‘N Spokes’. There was this advertisement for a wheelchair tennis camp and he said, ‘You should go to this camp. It’s in California and it’s free’. So, I was like, ‘I’m in’.

Korb remembers her first visit to Vic Braden’s Tennis College with great fondness.

“I had no friends who were wheelchair users, nothing. Anyway, I got there and in the corner of the court I saw a young woman in a wheelchair. It was Sharon Clark (former world No. 3),” says Korb. “So I rolled up and we immediately began talking. We decided that we must room together and became fast friends.

“I really believe there are no mistakes in life, especially not in my life. So when I look back I can see that from that first camp it’s a long, long line of relationship-building, from Sharon to Jason Harnett (current Wheelchair Tennis National Manager at the USTA) and so on.”

While freely admitting to not being a tennis fan at the time and having no idea how to keep score, Korb was continually being told she had natural talent, but she also found something more profound.

“It was the first time in my life that I had found a peer group. I was around the likes of Randy Snow and Brad Parks and I had no idea at that time that wheelchair tennis was still so new. I had no idea that there were tournaments,” she says. “Going to that camp was a real life-changer for me. It was about representation. I had never seen so many disabled people and they were all powerful problem-solvers.”

One of the other participants at the camp, Michael Watson, persuaded Korb that she should stay on and play a tournament, so she changed her flight.

“There was no beginner’s women’s division, so I played in the men’s C division and I ended up winning. I still have that trophy and it’s one of my most coveted possessions. Now it’s at my parents’ house in New Jersey,” she says. “But I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t a women’s division. I was already an older player at the time – something like 27 or 28 – and I was thinking we need to create more opportunities for women, hence my passion for creating opportunities specifically with disabled women and girls.”

Korb’s wheelchair tennis journey moved rapidly and she discovered new friend Michael Watson and his brother Bob had created what has since become the USTA-ITF Cruyff Foundation Junior Wheelchair Tennis Camp. Watson persuaded Korb that she should be on the team of instructors.

“So, within a month of doing my own first wheelchair tennis camp I was in San Diego for this junior camp – JAWS, Junior Athlete Wheelchair Sports – and I could not believe that there were over 100 children with physical disabilities of all different kinds,” she says. “So, my goals changed and that’s when I picked up my life and moved to California.”

Korb’s time in California was relatively short-lived as she found it difficult to combine law school and tennis and subsequently moved back to Florida, where her playing career thrived.

“I was playing tournaments, my ranking was going up and in no time at all I’m playing in this tournament for the Top 8 called the Lakeshore Foundation World Challenge, which was an ITF 1,” she says. “Every time I think about that I realise the profoundness of it all, since I now work at Lakeshore.”

Whilst playing at the Lakeshore Foundation World Challenge in Birmingham, Alabama, Korb heard rumours that there was a coach with a vision of creating a collegiate wheelchair tennis team.

“My life was very comfortable at the time. I was living in Miami, I was a personal trainer, so had a good job, but all I remember is wanting this coach to include women in their collegiate wheelchair tennis team at Georgia State University,” says Korb, who took the opportunity to share her views with Coach Chuck McCuen.

A couple of weeks later Korb was on court at another junior wheelchair tennis camp back in San Diego when she received a phone call.

“It was Coach Chuck McCuen and he offered me a full scholarship at Georgia State University. I was already 30 and I couldn’t get my brain around it,” says Korb. “But I said yes and became the first athlete with a disability to receive a NCAA Division 1 scholarship to play tennis and that profoundly changed my life again.

“The scholarship was directly related to Blaze Sports Georgia, a branch of the legacy organisation of the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games, and I started to teach intermittently at camps with Blaze Sports,” she adds. “So, again I was able to develop relationships that continue to foster projects to this very day.”

Having graduated with her Masters in Sports Management from Georgia State University, Korb started to work for Blaze Sports America after the Athens 2004 Paralympics. eventually becoming Director of Partnerships.

“During that time, I was still playing and I remember having a conversation with Martin McElhatton (former President of the ITF Wheelchair Tennis Committee). I brought up that I was angry that women still didn’t have an exhibition event at Wimbledon,” says Korb. “Anyway, I brought it to the Women’s Sports Foundation here in America, an opinion paper was produced and it gradually went up the ladder and reached the ITF. It wasn’t long before a women’s event was announced for Wimbledon.”

Korb already had experience of being an advocate in the area of wheelchair tennis inclusion at the Grand Slams, having worked with the USTA to bring a wheelchair tennis exhibition to the US Open in 2002. She played in the exhibition and it’s one of the many ‘firsts’ on her career CV.

“My life in advocacy has spanned over three decades and is not necessarily specific to sport, it’s specific to life and inclusion. It’s about equity and speaking up and saying something when nobody else is going to say something,” she says. “A lot of the things about my very humble legacy is about being outspoken, because sometime change doesn’t happen without it.”

A two-time Paralympian and 10-time World Team Cup player for the USA, as well being a former USA World Team Cup junior team captain, Korb’s highlights as a player mostly centre around both global events.

“In 2000, I went to the Sydney Paralympics and I played against Branka Pupovac (Australia) on Centre Court. Firstly, I couldn’t believe that I was there and then I couldn’t believe that the stadium was full and the crowd was so loud,” she says.

“I also particularly remember a World Team Cup where a lot of players got food poisoning. Hope Lewellen was supposed to be playing at No .1 for the USA. Anyway, Hope couldn’t play and I remember having to step into that role and that was a really profound thing for me to be able to do.”

Korb continues: “At the same time I remember how, in that situation, all the players really looked after each other. There were multiple teams that were affected but we all stepped in to help each other. It was beyond competition and beyond playing for your country and all about being a kind human being.

“I remember first watching Ricky Molier and Monique (Kalkman) at some of my very first World Team Cups. There as so many leaders in our movement that were so inviting to me as a relatively new player.”

Retirement from her playing career was a very ‘intentional and conscious, but difficult decision’ for Korb.

“For me it was, ‘what do I want the next chapter of my life to look like’ and ‘how can I help grow the sport of tennis in different ways’, whether that be as an administrator or as a role model or as someone who has intellectualised a lot of things over many years and enjoyed a lot of privilege,” she says.

“I still don’t think we’re doing enough. I think there are pockets where growth is incredible but one thing I’ve learned over the past three decades is that we like to steal our players from other sports. We all want our sport to be the best sport, however, not every child and not every adult is cut out to play tennis.”

After her career as a tennis player, Korb briefly took up handcycling. “I became quite successful at handcycling but I decided not to pursue that in a Paralympic way because it was taking up so much of my time and I just wanted to do my 5am 40-mile work-out and the go to work and create bigger opportunities for people with disabilities – specifically girls and women,” she says.

“I knew that creating that pipeline would create not just academic success or on-the-court success, but it would translate into professional success and that’s what we need. You’re not always going to have a long career in sport and you need something to fall back on. So now it’s a different conversation about an athlete’s life.”

Having worked for the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama for 14 or 15 years as an independent contractor and helping to run, junior camps and military camps, Korb was asked if she would entertain an advocacy-policy position in 2013.

“I looked at the job description and thought ‘this is horrible’. But the opportunity came back around to me in 2016 and I said ‘yes’. Sometimes you just have to say yes to something that is very different to how you see yourself,” says Korb.

“I’ve been working at Lakeshore now, as Policy and Public Affairs Co-ordinator, since 2016. But prior to that I’d been doing some military camps and some work for the US State Department and also for the ITF in different countries,” she adds. “So I’d been overseas quite a bit and looking at different things like access, education and creating tool kits and just giving myself a complete policy download about what’s important in different countries.

“With this position I’ve been able to do a lot that directly relates to the health and well-being of people with disabilities. In America, there’s a historic mantra called ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ and I’ve been talking a lot with Candace Cable, one of the US’s most decorated wheelchair athletes and she’s changed the mantra to ‘Nothing Without Us’.”

Now 52, Korb traces her career and its many facets and achievements back to one simple decision.

“The platform for what I do today is very specific to having said yes to going to a sports camp,” she says. “Currently what I’d like to see is an educational bridge that connects adapted athletes to the independent living movement or the global movement with respect to disabled people and how we use our sports platform to move the needle on human rights.

“Right now I’m watching at the upper levels of the ITF, the USTA and other governing bodies that the priorities are inclusion of people with disabilities within the political infrastructures that create sport in and of itself,” adds Korb. “Becoming an educated athlete is pivotal, not just for your sports success but to your personal success.

So, what of becoming the latest recipient of the UNIQLO Spirit Award?

“I don’t think any of us do this work because we want awards, but I will say that in receiving this award my mind instantly goes to what am I going to do with this accolade and what am I’m going to do to create something better for my women and girls in this sport,” says Korb. “I’m really excited to do something bigger on the shoulders of my really fabulous award.”