Justin Caine sat in the back seat of his father’s car headed to his first day of fourth grade. He bent down to tie his shoe and felt a splitting pain in his head, started vomiting and fell back unconscious. The 10-year-old had a cancerous brain tumor, which hemorrhaged on his cerebellum, and only had a 40 percent chance to live by the time he got to the Emergency Department at Sparrow Hospital.
An experienced surgeon, and a seven-and-a-half hour surgery, saved his life and gave him the opportunity to prove the world wrong.
“After the surgery, the doctor had told my mom he had done all he could,” Caine said. “No one knew what was going to happen. I was in a coma for several days. When I came out, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t swallow.”
Thirty years later, Caine is an accomplished Para-athlete, a husband, father and successful business owner.
He has broken the U.S. Paralympic shot put record over 10 times, won back to back national championships in long jump, the 100-meter dash and shot put.
Caine is a five time All-American, 9-time U.S. record holder, International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS) Games medalist, and has multiple wins at the Meijer State Games of Michigan.
“My younger self would be totally amazed to see where I am now,” Caine said. “My younger self would be very proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish.”
Much of his cerebellum, which controls speech and coordination, were removed and the remainder was severely damaged. As a fourth grader, Caine had to relearn everything, using different parts of his brain.
He spent four months in the hospital relearning how to talk and walk through speech, physical and occupational therapies, while also learning the fourth grade curriculum he was missing out on.
“Going through that when I did, it really sparked a very competitive edge in me,” Caine said. “That’s helped me a lot since, to outperform what many people expected of me or still expect of me.”
Caine was not allowed to play any physical contact sports growing up due to the trauma from his hemorrhage.
“I had a love for football, but obviously I couldn’t do that,” Caine said. “I ended up being the equipment manager for my high school football team and that was awesome. But I really want throughout most of my schooling without any competitive outlet or anything athletic.”
Caine went on to receive a degree in Media Technology from Lansing Community College. During this time, he worked as a doorman at Harper’s Restaurant & Brewpub.
“One night, there was a massive brawl that broke out in the club,” Caine said. “I, being the person that I am, jumped in without any thought about how smart that would be for me. I ended up wrestling a guy to the ground and that was it.”
This incident inspired him to start getting stronger.
“That led me down a path to start lifting and working out,” Caine said. “Mostly 5K’s and races and triathlons and club soccer. I was doing all this stuff and I was really enjoying it.”
Caine and his wife, Meaghan, met shortly after he started competing in 2009. The couple was introduced through mutual friends at a karaoke night and have been together ever since.
“When he sets his mind to something, he is the most driven and disciplined person I’ve ever met,” Meaghan said. “I do a lot of second guessing and falling off the wagon or losing sight of goals really easily. Not Justin. He just follows the plan and never doubts himself.”
His stepmom, who had been his physical therapist at Sparrow Hospital in fourth grade, knew of his love for athletics and competing and decided that she wanted to do more work to help people with disabilities.
She started a group in the greater Lansing area of people with disabilities to compete at the Michigan Victory Games.
Over two years, Caine competed in 28 competitions, ranging from track and field, swimming, ping pong, powerlifting, and won 27 of them.
“Whether it was when he was weightlifting heavily when we met, when he was training for a marathon, or all of his Para-athletics, he just set a goal, trained, and adjusted his diet to accomplish his goal,” Meaghan said.
He wanted to continue to push himself athletically and competitively. Caine discovered the Paralympics and felt like this was the place he belonged.
“The last week of my 30th year, I got involved in Paralympics,” Caine said. “I went to my first Para-athletic event in Chicago. I competed and did pretty well, in fact, I set the U.S. record in discus. I was hooked right away. So that started my nine-year Paralympic journey.”
Caine, 40, is retired from being a competitive Para-athlete. He resides in Holt as a husband, father to two daughters, Felicity and Silas, and business owner of Good Fruit Video. As he reflects on his career, he is grateful for the opportunity and wouldn't change it for the world.
“There’s a lot of experiences that I definitely wouldn’t have ever had if I had never done this,” Caine said. “I’ve had opportunities to travel around the world and compete. I’ve competed in Sweden and in Portugal and in Chile. And if I never would’ve been involved in this kind of stuff, I don’t know if I ever would have been to those places by now or ever.”
Caine was selected in 2022 to represent the U.S. at the IWAS World Games in Portugal. IWAS is designed to give aspiring Paralympians their first taste of international competition.
“Just seeing the gleam in his eyes as he draped the U.S. flag around his shoulders to accept the medal was moving,” Meaghan said. “It was something he had dreamt of for so long, it was just so wonderful to see it become a reality.”
His final long jump competition was the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
The games consist of North, South and Central America with 17 Parapan American sports and more than 8,000 athletes. Team USA sent 240 athletes to Santiago.
“We were flown out there, we had gear given to us and we had shoes by Nike given to us, all that kind of stuff,” he said. “It’s the same level as being an Olympic athlete.”
Caine has jumped around from sport to sport but found a love for long jump later in his career.
“I started my career thinking I was a thrower, because I ended up setting U.S. records in both discus and shot put for my disability level, and I still own both of those,” Caine said. “It took me until about three years ago to realize that while I was spending all my time really working on throwing, I was long jumping this whole time and was getting better and better and better.”
Caine had to completely rethink his training and body type as a long jumper.
“I lost 50 pounds,” he said. “I went from 20% body fat to 5%. I had to change what I was eating and how I was eating, everything, to really change my body composition to get there. But I did. It was really fun.”
Caine walked into this competition knowing that it would be his last. Many of his competitors were one to two decades younger, and he had many other things going on in his life that he wanted to place his focus on.
“I wish I would’ve stopped doubting myself a lot sooner,” Caine said. “I want to use that lesson to inspire other young folks with disabilities. Whether it is their desire to be an elite athlete, to run a business, to be a leader, to have a family, to own a house, or to drive a car. There’s a lot of things that people with disabilities are told they can’t because of assumptions. And assumptions, all they do is make an ass of you and me. So I guess if it came down to one line, I would say don’t assume what you cannot do until you have really tried it.”
