Evan Wilkerson’s Journey from Newcomer to Paralympian

Long before he was a Paralympic swimmer, Evan Wilkerson was a blind kid just trying to figure out how to manage in the pool. 

“To be honest, at first it was not fun. It was not my thing,” said Wilkerson, 19, who followed his sister into the sport and joined his first recreational team when he was 6 years old. “I had no way of knowing where the wall was. I had no real way to stay straight. I had no idea there were other blind people trying to swim. I was like, ‘I’m the first blind person trying to swim here, and I don’t know what I’m doing.’ It was a rocky start.” 

Things changed when Wilkerson was 9 years old and the 2016 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials came to Charlotte, North Carolina, a close enough drive from his home in Wake Forest that he and his parents could make the trip to learn what it was all about. By that point he’d gotten better in the water and was enjoying the sport much more, and the experience started him on a path he is still traveling. 

“(My parents) were describing to me what people were doing, and that there were other blind swimmers getting hit on the head with a big, long pole, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s weird,’” he said of the technique he would soon learn was called tapping. 

But the more he took in the meet, the more he realized: “This could be the thing.” 

“Seeing people out there competing and going to Rio,” he said, “I was like, ‘This could be something I want to try to do, to try to get to that level. I’m going to give it my best shot and see what happens.’” 

Wilkerson has been steadily moving through the ranks of the national team ever since, including making the 2024 U.S. Paralympic Team for Paris. He’s currently a member of the “B” team, with plans to make the “A” team and return to the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles. 

Climbing the Levels 

Not long after his visit to the Paralympic trials, Wilkerson entered his first Para meet, the Fred Lamback Para Open in Georgia. As a very goal-oriented person, he had already identified the first time he had to hit in order to make the “emerging” cut and get the attention of the national team. 

U.S. Paralympics Swimming has seven athlete levels, beginning with the “recreational” level that includes local club or school teams. “Competitive” level swimmers typically are nationally classified, train with a swim program and have hit what are called “motivational” time standards. 

An “emerging” level athlete has hit even faster time cuts, is becoming more advanced both in and out of the pool, and will start communicating with national team staff and planning for international classification. 

“I already had my eyes on (my first emerging cut) in 2016, which may have been a little too early,” Wilkerson said. “But I kept my eyes on those times for a really long time, and in 2021 I truly started reeling in that emerging cut.” 

Getting Classified 

All athletes who want to participate in Para competitions must undergo an evaluation to determine their sport class so that they can compete against other athletes with similar abilities. The classes for swimming include 10 levels for physical impairments, three for visual impairments and one for intellectual impairments. 

Wilkerson said by the time he and his parents had returned home from their trip to the Paralympic trials in 2016 they’d already done some research and figured he’d probably fall into the S12 classification, or the mid-range of visual impairment. 

“I go and do the classification they do for you at the national level, and they were like, ‘Yeah. you’re a 12,’” he said. “The first time I got internationally classified was in 2023.” 

International classification is for elite athletes and is required to compete in sanctioned international meets such as the Para Swimming World Series, world championships and Paralympics. Re-evaluations continue throughout an athlete’s career, and classifications can change as the disability changes. 

Reaching the Top 

Wilkerson hit his first emerging cut in 2022 and was invited to his first camp at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was also invited to compete at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile. Within a year of making his first emerging cut, he dropped time and qualified for the “C” team. 

“At that point I was like OK, let’s go from ‘C’ to ‘B,’ let’s go for that and only spend four months on the ‘C’ team,” he said. “And the crazy thing was, I did. I ended up hitting that time and hitting it again at the Paralympic trials. And that’s how I ended up in Paris, was consistently chasing down these goal times one after another. Going into every meet with the idea of this is the next big step that we need to try and hit. Para meets are limited; you have to go in really ready to get those times because you might only have one or two a year.”  

National team staff has reimagined the different levels in recent years. Once an athlete hits emerging times the next step is being named to the “Rising Star” level. The Rising Stars Team supports developing athletes who are not yet internationally classified but have hit national “A” or “B” time standards. The Under-23 team level is the entry to the “A” and “B” teams, and then “A” and “B” represent the top two tiers of national team status with increasing levels of financial, training and other support. 

Wilkerson’s Advice 

For a young swimmer just starting out on the journey Wilkerson began 10 years ago, the Paralympian’s first piece of advice is to not be too hard on yourself too young. Learn to enjoy the sport before you learn to get good at it, he said. 

The second is to find a good coach and don’t try to do it all on your own, especially a visually impaired swimmer. Having someone who can not only look at your technique but also get in the water with you and move you so that you know how it’s supposed to feel is critical. 

“The third thing would be just don’t be afraid to ask questions,” he said. “Having the information you need is important. Especially on the emerging team, asking what resources are available and what you can be doing at that level to start angling toward the national team. Really have a constant curiosity about how you can improve and ask what the next steps are.” 

Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.