Maureen (McCullough) Johnson (BS ’90) never imagined that a single week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center would reshape her professional life. Today, she is a U.S. Para Rowing Medical Classifier, a dedicated volunteer with Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Rowing Association (TRRA) Adaptive Team and a passionate advocate for adaptive sports—helping athletes with disabilities rediscover movement, competition and community.
Johnson earned her Bachelor of Science in physical therapy from Pitt in 1990 and later completed her transitional Doctorate of Physical Therapy at the University of Indianapolis in 2011. Her doctoral practicum, “Long-term Rehabilitation Considerations for the Lower Extremity Military Amputee,” grew from early interactions with military members through the Girl Scouts and a longstanding interest in working with individuals with limb loss.
The most transformative experience of her doctoral education occurred in 2008 during a week-long practicum at the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, MATC was one of only three national hubs caring for military amputees. It was there that Johnson was first introduced to adaptive sports—not as recreation, but as a powerful extension of rehabilitation and identity rebuilding.
More than a decade later, after years working in a small community hospital, Johnson was looking for a change. With her youngest child heading to college and a return to Pittsburgh on the horizon, she chose a bold reset. In 2020, she enrolled in the Master of Science in Adapted Physical Activity program at Slippery Rock University, with the goal of working with Wounded Warriors.
In the summer of 2021, Johnson completed two pivotal internships. At BlazeSports in Atlanta, she was immersed in adaptive sports programming for youth and veterans, including wheelchair basketball and tennis, para archery, adaptive swimming and cycling, and hippotherapy. She assisted at the 2021 Peachtree Para Games, met her first Paralympic medical classifier and discovered adaptive rowing—a sport that would soon become central to her life.
Her second internship brought her full circle back to Walter Reed, now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, where she worked with the Marine Wounded Warrior Battalion East’s Warrior Athlete Reconditioning Program. Embedded in a program designed to help medically retiring service members remain active as they transition to civilian life, Johnson gained hands-on experience in adaptive rowing under the mentorship of a supervisor who also coached the U.S. Army Warrior Games Rowing Team.
After returning to Pittsburgh in fall 2021, Johnson resumed clinical physical therapy and began volunteering with the Three Rivers Rowing Association Adaptive Team, one of the largest adaptive rowing programs in the Northeast. She now volunteers multiple times per week, assisting athletes with transfers, equipment setup, rowing technique and safety—both on the river and during the demanding indoor training season. Johnson serves on TRRA’s Advocacy and Inclusion Committee, which partners with organizations such as Special Olympics, Envision Blind Sports and Wounded Warriors.
In addition to rowing, Johnson volunteers annually as a physical therapist on the medical team for the Face of America Bike Challenge, a 111-mile, two-day ride honoring injured service members, veterans and first responders.
For Johnson, the heart of adaptive sports lies with the athletes themselves. “They’ve accepted their disabilities,” she says, “but they’ve chosen to embrace life and adapt with incredible strength and positivity.” One athlete with an incomplete C5 spinal cord injury once told her that rowing was the closest sensation to running—rhythmic, aerobic and freeing.
Johnson now travels annually to events such as the Bayada Regatta near Philadelphia, the largest para rowing competition in the country. As a medical classifier, she has helped launch athletes into competitive pathways, including a retired U.S. Army Ranger who later medaled at the Invictus Games and now coaches for the Warrior Games.
Reflecting on her journey, Johnson hopes today’s PT students recognize adaptive sports as a meaningful and often overlooked avenue for impact. “I didn’t know this world existed when I was in PT school,” she says. “Working with adaptive athletes has deepened my empathy and clinical understanding far beyond the clinic. It’s a privilege to witness their victories.”
