Anthony Streiff ’01 helped the Harrisonburg Cardinals to a runner-up finish in the 2018 National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s national tournament this spring in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the first-time invitation for the team, which earned a top-five national ranking in the Adult Division III from the NWBA rankings committee.
The following coverage by Andrew Clay was published in the February 15, 2018, Daily News-Record.
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Anthony Streiff, pronounced “strife”, grew up in Weyers Cave, Virginia. He graduated high school from Fort Defiance in 1997 and then attended Eastern Mennonite University.
In English, the word “strife” is a noun meaning an act of contention, a fight, or struggle. Streiff’s life has been a struggle but perhaps his German heritage speaks stronger. The name “Streiff” in German is used to describe an aggressive warrior. Streiff has had to emulate that German meaning to survive not one, but two life-threatening incidents.
He was 19 years old in 1997 and a freshman at EMU when a car accident nearly killed him. On a night devoted to catching up and having fun with high school friends, he’d spend it fighting for his life.
“I did what you’re told to do, I had a designated driver,” Streiff said. “On the way home we got lost. The driver fell asleep at the wheel and of course I had been drinking and was on the passenger’s side. We hit the tree at 62 mph.”
“They didn’t know if i was going to live.”
At the time, Streiff was running track for the Royals.
“The doctors told me they didn’t know if I was going to run again, and I went back to run my sophomore and junior year,” he added with a grin.
Five years later, after another night of drinking and hanging with his friends, he tested fate once more.
“Horse-playing, you know, what not. I climbed a tree. The tree broke on me and i fell out 27-feet,” Streiff said.
He recalled being knocked out for about two minutes.
“I remember waking up and I couldn’t feel anything from just below my waist down and numb,” Streiff said.
Streiff knew from that moment that he would never walk again.
He rehabbed at Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville where he met Tim Moubray, the coach for the Shenandoah Valley High Rollers, a wheelchair basketball team that practices in Harrisonburg.
“They’re athletes, they don’t want to hug after the game, they’re here to play and win,” Moubray said. “It’s different after you end up in the chair. but it’s what you make it.”
Unlike many of Moubray’s players, he’s not bound to a wheelchair but qualifies to play because of knee problems.
The High Rollers practice every Thursday night and compete against teams from across the mid-Atlantic. But the team is about more than wins and losses.
“(Anthony) first came to us right at about six weeks post injury I think,” Moubray said. “We were at Woodrow Wilson practicing at the time, his mother was on the sideline and fell out of his chair” right away and she jumped up and I grabbed her and said, ‘just sit,’ and the guys went over and taught him how to get up.”
“You go from being 24-years-old, back to an infant again, because you’ve got to think you’ve got to learn to live life again,” Streiff said. “Doctors are going to tell you, ‘oh don’t do this, or don’t do that, you’ll get a pressure soar.’ But I learned from these guys. I learned how to live life.”
That life experience is the same one Streiff teaches the kids he works with.
“You open up these textbooks, or you get on the internet and read stories about this stuff that happens to people. But when you put somebody in front you you and say ‘no, put that book down, I’m here, I’m in front of you.’ That’s what i like to do.”
Streiff speaks each year at EMU and visits high schools across the state, telling his story, teaching them about the importance of making better decisions.
“After the first accident. I was angry. why did this happen to me? And then you know when the second one happened I wasn’t as angry, because maybe I just didn’t get it the first time and it took me the second round to maybe try to understand,” Streiff said.
It’s been 13 years since Streiff found his new family, a basketball team that’s taught him everything about life in a chair. While he lives very differently than the college runner he was, it’s been a change for the good and he says he’s as happy as ever.
“It’s been a blessing in a way, because I’ve been told that I’ve touched more lives in my situation than I would have if I had been on my feet,” Streiff said. “If I can keep you out of my seat, than that’s my goal.”