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Wheelchair athlete honored with photo on Cheerios box

Knoxville News
By The Associated Press
03.22.08

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) - The accomplishments of a Johnson City wheelchair racer have landed him a spot on breakfast tables.

Fain Gogg, who won six gold medals competing in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games, is one of 12 athletes being honored with photos on boxes of Cheerios cereal.

Gogg spent Thursday autographing boxes as they were sold at Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Mountain Home, where he works. The special cereal packages also are on sale at VA Canteen Service stores and U.S. military base commissaries.

The sales are helping raise money for the Fisher House, a network of guest houses for the families of members of the military getting care at veterans hospitals.

Gogg is a former Navy corpsman and one-time Army lieutenant. He's now a sports management major at East Tennessee State University and works at the hospital as a patient services specialist and volunteer mentor for seriously injured veterans with an interest in sports.

"It's not what happened to you. It's what you do about it," Gogg said.

He was paralyzed in a January 1997 car accident on an icy Tennessee highway. But he said he faces challenges similar to veterans injured in combat.

Gogg won three gold medals during his first games in 2004 and repeated the accomplishment in 2007.

The National Veterans Wheelchair Games are open to all U.S. veterans who use wheelchairs because of spinal cord injuries, neurological conditions, amputations and other mobility impairments.

The games are billed as the largest annual wheelchair sporting event in the U.S. and advocate an active lifestyle for those who suffer such injuries.

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