Bob Lujano, recently featured in the 2005 documentary,Murderball: Smashing Stereotypes One Hit at a Time, will speak at Mount St. Mary's University on Monday, October 30.

His talk begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Knott Auditorium on the Mount campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Lujano was born in Wichita, Kansas and graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington (B.A. in Pre-Law).  He holds a M.S. in Sports Management from the University of Tennessee. He's also a quadruple amputee. On January 7, 1979, he lost limbs below the elbow and above the knee, due to a rare blood disease called Meningococcemia, which is a rare form of meningitis. He was featured in Murderball: Smashing Stereotypes one Hit at a Time, winner of the best documentary at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, follows the trials and tribulations of the US Quad Rugby Team as they prepare for the 2004 Paralympic Games of Athens. 

The sport of Murderball (Quad Rugby) combines the finesse of soccer with the bone-jarring collisions of a demolition derby. The athletes use custom wheelchairs that look like something out of a Mad Max movie. Players careen around the court with reckless abandon, like a rock-em-sock-em NHL on wheels.  During the process, they also unwittingly seek and destroy stereotypes about people with spinal cord injuries.

In his 10 years of playing quad rugby, Lujano has won 5 US Quad Rugby National Championships with the Lakeshore Demolition of Birmingham, AL and won 3 medals playing rugby for Team USA.  A Gold ('99 World Wheelchair Games), one Sliver (World Championships), and one Bronze (2004 Paralympics).  For 7 years he has worked at the Lakeshore Foundation, an official US Olympic and Paralympic Training Site, as Coordinator of Athletics.

For more information. please contact the Office of Communications at 301-447-5366.