Ten years after the perilous, head-first slide that transformed Travis Roy, hockey player into Travis Roy, survivor, motivational speaker and political lobbyist, he’d prefer to avoid people like me.

But Roy, 30, fights the natural urge to seek seclusion and face his monumental challenges alone for the same reason he fought his way out of a hospital with dignity and independence and out of college with a degree.

He does it for his late friend, actor Christopher Reeve. He does it for hospital roommates who aren’t blessed with notoriety or comprehensive medical insurance. He does it in faith that he might reach the person with the power to unlock tomorrow for thousands of handicapped Americans.

“We’ve raised over $1 million for the Travis Roy Foundation, but we’ve got a long way to go. Raising money isn’t easy,” Roy said Tuesday afternoon from his home in Boston. “That’s one reason I do stay in the media. I don’t enjoy the media all that much.”

He laughs, this published author and TV hockey analyst, even as the calendar evokes tearful memories.

Tonight marks the 10th anniversary of Roy’s life-altering accident. Eleven seconds into his first shift as a freshman hockey player at Boston University, the Yarmouth native slid awkwardly into the boards at the end of the rink. He has been paralyzed from the neck down ever since, with limited use of his right bicep allowing him to maneuver a motorized wheelchair.

Roy was a stubborn kid, known to practice his slap shot on North Yarmouth Academy’s ice long after the house lights were dimmed for the night. The same stubborn streak pushed him to graduate from BU in four years while living in a dormitory with able-bodied peers.

The long road

Today, with his parents hundreds of miles away in the hills of Vermont, Roy lives on his own in the city, reliant upon home health care nurses to handle the day-to-day details of feeding, bathing and dressing him.

“I never made it easy for myself. Even in school, I would go from BU to Maine for the holidays, back to BU for spring semester and then spend the summer in Vermont,” Roy recalled. “I had new nurses all the time. I’ve had well over 200 home health aides in the last 10 years.”

While it has been a decade of triumph, Roy also has known many lifetimes worth of physical and emotional pitfalls. He experienced the break-up of a relationship as other BU classmates were finding partners for life, or at least enjoying the benefits of co-ed singleness.

In the four-year frustration of trying to discover who he was in his new reality, Roy felt smothered by reminders of who he was not.

“It was all around me. As a high-level quadriplegic, in college, I don’t want to say I felt like an outcast, but I didn’t fit in,” said Roy. “You see people going to bars or dance clubs, making plans for the weekend, free to experience it all, no restrictions. It all sort of flashes before your eyes.”

Still, he adds, “My quality of life is greater than anything I could have imagined.”

Ten years have changed our world beyond recognition, but some things remain too stagnant for Roy’s taste.

Reeve, who was paralyzed in an equestrian accident the same year as Roy, died with medical science no closer to a cure.

“I remember us talking back then about some advances that would find a cure, maybe, in five years,” Roy said. “Sadly, we’ve lost Christopher, and we’re really not any closer than when we started. It’s frustrating.”

Taking a stand

Roy has taken Reeve’s place as a leader at the center of the debate regarding so-called stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells are thought to hold the key to a cure for many disorders, including spinal cord injuries. The discussion was a hot-button issue at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and one that polarizes the political left and right.

Roy, who says he considers himself an independent, has testified before Congress.

“I am very conservative on some issues and liberal on others,” he said. “We need to give researchers the truth. Everybody’s got their two- or three-line stance on this, you know, but they’ve got to look into it a little further. We need to get educated.”

Although the Travis Roy Foundation also is devoted to research, its primary goal is to assist the handicapped with independent living until a cure is found. You may log on to www.travisroyfoundation.org or www.travisroy.com for more information.

In the meantime, Roy’s life embodies rugged individualism. He uses events such as last Friday’s appearances at junior high schools in Lewiston and Auburn to inspire and inform.

Thank goodness he’s overcome that wariness of the public eye, because there aren’t many names in New England sports lore with as much to offer as Travis Roy.

May his next 10 be a triumphant 10.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].