Lee Montgomery’s accomplishments in sports are staggering. He has competed in tennis, basketball, volleyball and racing at the highest levels of wheelchair sports.
Lee, who discovered wheelchair basketball at age 14, helped lead the 1979 Grand Rapids Pacers basketball team to a National Championship and five more top-five finishes over the years.
As a tennis player, he has been ranked as high as No. 10 nationally.
He also won a gold medal in wheelchair basketball in the 1990 Pan American Games and played sitting volleyball in four Paralympic Games.
He has also achieved greatly in coaching and mentoring local, national and international athletes.
He has worked with Mary Free Bed’s Wheelchair & Adaptive Sports basketball teams (Junior Pacers and Adult Pacers) for several years and coached the Junior Pacers to a national title. He received his first prosthetics from Mary Free Bed at age five when he moved her from his native Mississippi for the specialized care of those with limb differences.
He has also been involved with the Warrior Games, first as a coach with the U.S. Special Operations Command in 2015 (Army team), and as a manager for the games around the country.
He is the only wheelchair athlete in the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame and is also a member of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association Hall of Fame. Montgomery retired in 2017 after 31 years as a certified computer programmer with Meijer Inc.