After 14 years on crutches, Joanne Kenton is working toward her goal of making the U.S. National Team for the Paralympics – at 54 years old.
“I went from almost dying to completely alive,” she says.
Back in 2008, at 36, Joanne was working as an athletic trainer for Lake Forest in Kent County, Delaware, when she was injured during a football game.
“I stand close on the field because I like to look down the line of scrimmage,” she says. That’s when she was struck during a tackle out of bounds.
“I initially thought I broke my leg, but it was my hip that popped out,” she says. She later learned she had cracked her femur and her hip was dislocated. Those injuries plagued her for the next 14 years – and more than eight hip procedures.
“I was living on crutches all that time, in agonizing pain. I had three kids at home. It was a really hard time in my life.”
Everything changed when Joanne came across a doctor on Instagram – based in both New York City and Australia.
“I saw a post of a patient of his walking on the beach, and I thought, I live at the beach and haven’t walked on the beach in 14 years.”
That moment sparked her journey toward getting a prosthetic, and in 2023, she underwent amputation surgery.
“I woke up from surgery, and they told me I almost died. And from that moment, I thought, I just had my leg cut off – and I feel better. I’m a person of faith, and in that moment, I knew God was shaping my life.”
Joanne underwent osseointegration – a process where a titanium implant fuses directly with the surrounding bone. Hers was the first of its kind in the world for hips.
Now thriving, Joanne returned to work in 2024 as an athletic trainer at Polytech High School. She’s pain-free and training hard for her new obsession: handcycling.
“I don’t take sick days anymore. I take handcycling days,” she says with a smile.
In March 2024, she got a used handcycle. Just over a year later, on April 21, 2025, she competed in her first official race – and won the women’s handcycling division at the Boston Marathon, earning her first national championship.
In October of that same year, she took second place in her second race: the Marine Corps Marathon, another grueling 28.2-mile challenge.
She’s now training to improve her time trial score in hopes of getting ranked by U.S. Paralympics.
Delaware is rooting for you, JoAnn!
CRUSH QUESTIONS:
Q: What’s your favorite part about living in Coastal Delaware?
Joanne: “Being able to walk on the beach again.”
Q: Tell us something about yourself we wouldn’t otherwise know.
Joanne: “My injury happened in a game between Lake Forest and Polytech, so it’s truly full circle that all these years later, I’m standing on the other side of this – on the literal other side of the field.”
Q: By definition, a crush is a brief infatuation with something. What are you currently crushing on?
Joanne: “The promise of God! That he has big plans for us. He has been by my side this whole time, and without faith, I don’t know where I’d be.”
