On a recent summer morning, Eric LeGrand’s phone is buzzing. Texts and emails and call alerts arrive one after the other, unleashing a steady stream of persistent pings that serve as a soundtrack to LeGrand’s busy days.
By noontime, he’s pitched a potential investor on LeGrand Whiskey and tackled a flurry of messages about the many projects on his plate, his mind zigzagging between thoughts of coffee bean shipments at LeGrand Coffee House and A Walk to Believe, his annual Reeve Foundation fundraiser whose celebration on September 7 is fast approaching.
As he deftly types out his responses with a stylus pen clasped between his lips, the phone continues to buzz. But, on this and every day, LeGrand welcomes the churn, each ping a reminder of the career he’s worked so hard to build, of the responsibilities he carries – of a full life underway.
“Did you ever see a mad scientist write all these different quadratic equations on a board, and then at the bottom, there’s the solution?” he says. “That's kind of like my life. Every day is different, and I love that about it.”
In 2010, LeGrand sustained a C3-C4 spinal cord injury during a Rutgers University football game. Until that moment, his identity had been singularly rooted in the sport. As a defensive tackle on the Scarlet Knights, he was living his dream with his sights set on the NFL; the last thing he felt after the accident were his heels fluttering slowly to the turf.
The part of LeGrand forged by football remains intact, fueling his ever-evolving quest to be a playmaker, rather than a spectator, in his own life. But these days, a string of new titles – entrepreneur, broadcaster, motivational speaker, philanthropist – have come to define him, too.
“I had to adjust my life,” he says, adding. “With a spinal cord injury, I can’t write things down like you do. I can’t do things physically for myself. But I feel like my mind is the sharpest that it has ever been.”
After the accident, LeGrand poured his energy into therapy and rehabilitation. But as he grew stronger – breathing without a ventilator, moving his shoulders, regaining motion in his neck – the uncertainty of his future came into focus.
“Being an athlete was always about focusing on the task at hand,” he says. “So, when my injury happened, the major focus was on the therapy. Over time, it became, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’”
The publicity around LeGrand’s injury sparked an outpouring of supportive letters and social media shoutouts from strangers from across the country. When the interest in his recovery continued, his friends urged him to share his story; eventually, as he wrestled with the reality of his physical limitations alongside his determination to build a new life, LeGrand realized he might have something to say.