Marquette University High School graduate Chris Finn is writing a memoir about the journey that led to him coaching the USA National Power Soccer Team to a World Cup victory. He receives congratulations from the French coach after the United States team prevailed in the final.

Chris Finn says he grew up a "crazed kid," kicking the soccer ball to knock down tools in his Whitefish Bay garage, even though he knew he had less than a 1 percent chance to play professionally. But he didn’t know then that at age 35, he’d do it in a wheelchair, unable to move from the chest down, or that he’d coach the USA National Power Soccer Team to its first World Cup, 6-5, over France, in a sudden death penalty kick shoot-out last fall in Japan.

In the first sport played in power wheelchairs, two teams of four compete on a basketball floor. A specialized foot guard maneuvers the oversized ball while it’s blocked, attacked and passed at a typical speed of 6.2 mph. Finn discovered the sport through the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation program in California.

Finn was a senior majoring in physical education at UW-La Crosse when one Saturday night he slipped and fell in a restaurant bathroom, breaking his fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. After surgery, it was weeks before he could breathe on his own.

How did you overcome your physical obstacles?

"After being given steroids, following a spinal cord fusion, a drug-induced haze, a tracheotomy, on the verge of pneumonia, I knew it was forever. Equating it to my not making the Marquette High varsity soccer team because of strained hamstrings, I asked myself, ‘What’s next?’ Then I began assessing the problem, evaluating my choices and plotting a solution. My MUHS and college ROTC sports leadership training taught me to give to others what I liked best."

How did you handle your emotional state then and now?

"Emotions of visitors in the hospital seemed greater than mine. I always take a positive attitude."

How have you accomplished your goals?

"So many things happen and great opportunities are presented. I switched my major to recreation management and therapeutic recreation. After rehabbing in Milwaukee, I graduated from UW-La Crosse and rerouted my life to work with the disabled. I met a very special person, Robin, moved to California where so many (players) want to go international and was asked to coach. It was a whole new life."