Swimmer with no legs & 1 arm asks, ‘What’s your reason to quit?’
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BVM) – Gabe Marsh is an 18-year-old swimmer who was born without legs and one arm. What makes Marsh more extraordinary is that he’s training to qualify for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and he’s changing the lives of others through his story of perseverance.
Marsh, who doesn’t use prosthetics in the water, can recall his earliest memory of being accepted in the pool.
“When I was 7, the moment came when they let me swim against regular kids and not just by myself,” Marsh said. “I was head-to-head against this one kid and beat him. The boy that lost against me got yelled at by his mom.
“‘How can you lose to a kid with one arm and no legs?’ his mom was saying.”
That moment is one of his best swim memories and his parents found joy in it, too. His parents, Ed and Ann, adopted Gabe at around 4 months old since his birth mom couldn’t take care of him. Ed weighed in on his son’s swimming abilities.
“He’s better (at swimming) with one arm than most people are with two,” Ed said.
So what gravitated Gabe towards swimming in the first place? Needless to say, the day he even started floating was a shock to his entire family.
“When I was around 5, I heard a voice in my head, and it was telling me to swim…. I jumped in and started floating,” Gabe said. “As soon as my mom saw me jump in, she got scared and started running. All she sees is me swimming. She was happy and relieved at the same time.”
So, at 5 years old, Gabe started getting coaching lessons from his mom so that he could begin competing. All these years later, Gabe hasn’t used prosthetics. In fact, he doesn’t even use his wheelchair unless he’s at work.
“Having to rely on a piece of metal or piece of junk to get myself around, I don’t believe in that,” Gabe said. “God made me this way, if I needed an extra arm, He would have given me an extra arm to be better.”
The phrase “just keep swimming” can really pertain to Gabe in the pool and in life in general.
“When I was younger, I would question why and I think I did get suicidal around 7 or 8 years old and that’s a young age to do that,” Gabe said. “Now I say, ‘Why not me?’”
Now, Gabe shares he’s happy to be a beacon of light for other people with negative thoughts.
“[I was in a group of people who were] talking about what we struggled on and there was this one guy that was there,” Gabe started. “He’s normal. He has a good life and a dream car. He looked at me, he said, ‘I was going to kill myself.’ He said he was driving up the mountain to do it and he drove off the road and he crashed his dream car and he survived. [When he saw me later], he was like, ‘How can I struggle with something so little when someone like you is living his life?’”
It’s these types of stories and more that Gabe shared to describe who he is on the inside: hope for people and a best friend for others.
He’s also left an immense impact on the community of disabled athletes. Gabe, a 2022 graduate of Guntersville High School, swam with everyone else because there wasn’t a separate team for disabled swimmers. So, he and his mom convinced the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) to create a way for disabled swimmers to swim in their own race at the state level.
“It’s a system where people with a disability who want to swim – they’ll have other people with disabilities so they can swim against each other and not just by themselves,” Gabe said. “Since we started it in my senior year, (with it being so new), I was swimming in a race by myself.”
Gabe said he automatically won the medals and didn’t want to accept them, but he took them so that he could represent the system that he hopes will help future kids.
On top of “free medals,” Gabe said the most difficult thing about being a swimmer in his position is the “pity clap.”
“You can add seconds to your time and they’ll still cheer,” Gabe said. “They think it’s super cool to see a guy like me swim, I just see myself adding time.”
Today, Gabe is a student studying Theology at Snead State Community College. He’s doing his swim training independently on his quest to the Paralympics for the 200-meter freestyle.
Gabe’s disability is so rare that he’s only seen one other person like him. He said when people stare at him, he uses that as fuel when he’s swimming.
“It’s like what’s wrong with him or what is he? Or someone could be laughing at me,” Gabe said. “If I’m swimming, I use that anger as energy to keep on going. My second reason for being in competitions is to beat regular people. It’s what I did my whole life to better myself – rather than sitting at home and feeling bad about myself.”
Clearly, Gabe is made to be a motivational speaker. He noted he hopes to speak like Billy Graham one day. He said he makes appearances at public speaking events to talk about his life since other people find motivation in that.
“If I’m being honest, what’s your reason to quit?” Gabe stated. “You can’t just quit because something happens to you. If someone has a bad day or says they are too short or weak for a sport, [it shouldn’t matter] since it’s your hard work that makes you.”