SALT LAKE CITY — Each Sunday night for the past eight weeks, actor John Krasinski, best known for his role as Jim Halpert on the TV show “The Office,” has posted on YouTube an installment of a video series he’s titled “Some Good News.” Filmed at Krasinski’s home with him as “anchor,” the show highlights positive things that are happening around the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
In the opening minute of the May 10 episode, which has been viewed over 9 million times, a video clip shows a young man laying on his bed, texting some friends to see if they want to go on a run. Then two younger boys appear on the screen, reading the text from their respective homes.
The next scene is three videos mashed into one, showing all three of them running in their own neighborhoods. As the beginning of that scene develops, it becomes evident that none of the three have legs, and thus use prosthetic blades to run.
In the full video not shown on “Some Good News,” the trio races around their various neighborhoods, offering support to each other but also talking a little friendly trash about beating each other in a race.
The man who opened the video with the text message is Utahn Hunter Woodhall, the Syracuse High grad who set a couple of state high school records on the track, won a silver and bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics and became the first double amputee to ever be awarded a Division I track scholarship.
Prior to ending up on Krasinski’s show, Woodhall had tweeted the video of him, Jack Cunningham and Chase Merriweather at Krasinski. It was produced by Challenged Athletes Foundation, which aims to provide support to people with physical challenges so they can pursue active lifestyles through sport.
CAF is special to Woodhall, as it helped him get involved in running when he was younger, and now he serves as a mentor of sorts for Cunningham and Merriweather through it. His hope was that Krasinski would see the video, even as the actor has surely become inundated with people trying to get on his show.
“He puts a lot of positivity out and tries his best to highlight things like that going on,” Woodhall said of Krasinski. “With these things, you never really know what could happen. You’ve just kind of got to take a shot in the dark.”
Although the clip featuring them was just a few seconds, Woodhall said, “That was super cool for (Cunningham and Merriweather). For me, it’s a lot cooler to have those two kids be up on a big stage, just kind of get that exposure. I think that’s really exciting for them.”
For Woodhall, it was a bit of good news after a spring that, like for many, saw some significant disappointment because of the pandemic.
Woodhall just finished his junior season at the University of Arkansas, which boasts a top-25 track and field program in the country. This spring, he was part of a team that qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in the 4x400 and distance medley relays, adding to a sophomore campaign that saw him earn first-team All-America honors in both the indoor and outdoor 4x400 medley relay.
The NCAA Indoor Championships were set to begin on March 13 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he and his teammates were already there when the sports world began to shut down. On the afternoon of March 12, the NCAA announced that all remaining winter and spring championships were canceled.
It took another 12 days after that, but on March 24, it was announced that the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo, which together were slated to go from late July-early September, will be postponed a year.
Woodhall called the cancellation of the NCAAs the more challenging of the two announcements to come to terms with, as, “We were in the moment. It takes a lot of mental capacity to get yourself ready for a competition like that. It was kind of just pulled away right at the pinnacle, right at the peak of it. It’s a tough mental block to just kind of get over and move on from that.”
As for the Paralympics, Woodhall said “postponement is always better than cancellation,” and he sees a few silver linings in waiting a year to go for gold in Tokyo.
“It sucks, but I’m thankful for the opportunity that it’s given me to enjoy other things and kind of take my mind off track for a little while,” he said. “I’m pretty content. I’m very excited it’s going to be back in Tokyo next year. It’s a part of history now, so I’m excited to see what happens.”
But before Tokyo will be Woodhall’s senior year at Arkansas, where, in addition to all the good he’s accomplished on the track, he’s also faced the same sort of controversy he dealt with in high school from people who would say running with blades gave him an unfair advantage.
Woodhall said he tried to have the mindset when he was younger to not let it bother him, but looking back, he realizes it did affect him more mentally when he was younger than it does now.
“It kind of goes where I go for sure,” he said, “but at the end of the day, as I’ve been through this process, although the level of controversy or negativity surrounding me grows, same with the positivity and the support that I’m receiving as well.
“I’ve found it to be almost easier to just not focus on the negativity and the controversy and just do what I’m doing and put all my effort into what I’m doing rather than focusing on the negative things and especially things I can’t change. If there ever comes a way for me to grow my legs back, until then, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and I’m not going to apologize for it.”
Despite the controversy surrounding him, Woodhall said being able to compete on the collegiate level “holds a really special place in my heart and my journey just because it was one of the most difficult things to accomplish and one of the things that was probably the least likely to happen,” he said.
“Now that we’re here and we’re able to kind of sit back and see what’s going on and all the blessings that I’ve been able to have and just the fact that I am able to run in college, it’s just pretty special and it makes the whole college experience a little more real for me.”
That, in part, is why he’s wanted to stay involved with organizations like CAF, which gave a grant to him for blades many years ago and has done the same for Cunningham and Merriweather. Woodhall hopes that him trying to maximize his abilities can serve as motivation for youngsters in similar situations to do the same, an example he wishes he had when he was a kid.
“It’s not that I need everyone to follow in my exact footsteps,” he said. “I just want people to understand like, ‘Hey, I’m in this situation. I’m different. I was born with something that wasn’t supposed to happen and I’m still following my dreams.’ If that’s not enough for you then I don’t know what is, but I didn’t have that person, so I’m just trying to be that person for someone else.”