Matt Brown, paralyzed in a high school hockey game 15 years ago, is finding his groove

Boston Globe

18-05-2025

The answer surprised even Brown himself.
'While the answer is always yes, it would be harder to hit that reset button than most people think,' Matt Brown said. 'Because I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now.'
Fifteen years after he was paralyzed after crashing into the boards while playing hockey for Norwood High, Brown believes the accident that robbed him of so much has given him a perspective he never would have had if he hadn't been paralyzed.
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People spend years, sometimes a lifetime, trying to figure out their purpose. What were they put on this earth for?
From his wheelchair, Matt Brown can see higher and further than most. His purpose is, quite simply, to help others.
The
'Not exactly the optimum time,' he concedes.
Five years later, the foundation is, like Brown himself, finding its groove. It has distributed some $300,000 in grants to people who are living with paralysis, paying for accessible vehicles, home modifications, essential equipment.
Besides donors, an annual golf tournament and the Falmouth Road Race are big fund-raising tools. This year, the foundation gained charity status with the Boston Marathon, allowing it to field runners, opening a new revenue source that Brown hopes will allow it to distribute even more grants to more people.
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The grants change little things, changing lives. They renovated a bathroom for a guy on the South Shore who hadn't been able to shower since his accident a year before. They bought a standing frame for a man so he could be vertical in his Quincy home.
Not long ago, Brown got a call from the folks at the Little Mustangs Preschool Academy in Norwood, about two miles from his house.
One of the students there, a 4-year-old boy, is paraplegic. When his classmates went out to recess, all the boy could do was watch them from his wheelchair, because the playground equipment wasn't accessible to him.
Brown's foundation paid for an adaptive swing, and on Tuesday, Brown watched as the boy called his parents over to push him in that swing for the first time.
The boy's classmates made cards for Brown, thanking him in eight different languages.
'To see that little boy smile,' Brown said, 'to see his parents smile, I can't even explain what that feels like.'
He lives in the house he grew up in, with his parents, Mike and Sue. His parents met in the sixth grade. Sue's maiden name is Brown, same as Mike's, so they like to say Mike took her name when they got married.
Matt Brown would like to get a place of his own some day. But he can't imagine leaving Norwood. The town, and its people, always had his back.
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Next month, he'll be the best man at the wedding of his childhood friend Austin Glaser, a Norwood police officer who was his roommate at Stonehill College. Brown has been working on his speech for ages, trying to get it down from a half-hour to five minutes.
He has also remained close to Tyler Piacentini, the Weymouth High player whose check sent Brown crashing headfirst into the boards at Pilgrim Skating Arena in Hingham in 2010. He never blamed Piacentini, saying it was 'just two guys going for the puck.'
Last year, he did doughnuts in his wheelchair on the dance floor at Piacentini's wedding in Nashville.
On Wednesday, Brown was sitting in his driveway. As he does three days a week, he had just spent more than two hours at the gym at Journey Forward, a nonprofit in Canton that helps those with spinal cord injuries.
He regularly works out there alongside his friends, hockey players who suffered similar spinal cord injuries: Jake Thibeault, who was paralyzed in 2021 while playing for Milton Academy; AJ Quetta, who was paralyzed in 2021 while playing for Bishop Feehan High; and Denna Laing, who was paralyzed in 2015 while playing for the Boston Pride in the National Women's Hockey League.
'We almost have enough of us for a full line,' Brown deadpans.
Brown was mentored and inspired by
'We're all following in Travis's tire tracks,' Brown said.
In the driveway, Brown's friend Jack Doherty was talking about speeches he's lining up for Brown. Doherty has his own story:
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'When he speaks,' Doherty said, 'people want him to speak longer.'
Brown doesn't want anyone to think he's some super hero. He's just a regular guy from Norwood, who's been able to move on from a life-altering injury with the help of family and friends who never gave up on him, who always inspired him. And so he aspires to inspire others.
It could have gone the other way, he says.
'I could have closed the door, just stayed in my room, give in to that darkness,' he said. 'But my friends and family kept me going.'
He turned to look at the house where he ran down the stairs on Christmas mornings. Where he put on his uniform for Little League games. Where he did his math homework.
'When one door closes, not all doors close,' he said. 'I have to work hard to find those other doors. But I'll never stop trying.'
He looked up and down his street and then he said it, his mantra, something that repeats in his head, and he lives by it.
'Never quit,' Matt Brown said. 'Overcome. Keep going forward.'
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at