A Decade After the Award: The Work Continues

Catching up with our 2015 S’NS Junior Athlete of the Year

Catching up with our 2015 S’NS Junior Athlete of the Year

When Noah Blue Elk Hotchkiss won the Sports ’N Spokes Junior Athlete of the Year award in 2015, he was training alone in Durango, Colo., four hours from the nearest competition. Ten years later, he’s back in the Four Corners region, but this time he’s not alone — he’s building the program that’s putting other athletes on the map.

Making Good On Early Promise

The award did what awards are supposed to do — it opened doors. Within a year of his 2015 recognition, Hotchkiss won his first national junior wheelchair basketball championship with the Denver Junior Rollin’ Nuggets, taking MVP of the championship game. College coaches who might have overlooked a player from rural Colorado started paying attention.

“It really gave me a sense of confidence in a time of not really knowing what I was going to do,” Hotchkiss says. “Growing up in a small town of Durango, Colorado, I had teams about four hours away, so I did not play with anybody except at tournaments.”

The University of Illinois offered a full ride. Hotchkiss took it and stayed for five years, earning a degree in recreation, sport and tourism, while becoming a First Team All-American in his final two seasons. His senior year in 2022 stands out as the culmination of everything he’d worked toward.

“We came in as our highest ranking we’ve ever had in my five years at Illinois. We came in third, finished fourth, which wasn’t the outcome we wanted, but I felt like I was at my prime,” he recalls. “I was going to Team USA camps, I was coaching, I was helping out at clinics. It just felt like everything was coming together.”

Noah Hotchkiss, No. 13, during the 2025 NWBA Adult Wheelchair Basketball Championships. (Photo by Christopher Di Virgilio)

Rebuilding Tribal Adaptive

Fresh out of college, Hotchkiss did what many former athletes do — he got a job that had nothing to do with playing sports. For two years, he worked as a program coordinator for the Chicago Park District, learning how sports programs actually function behind the scenes. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it was necessary preparation for what came next.

The sports program Hotchkiss founded as a teenager in 2015 never really went away. While he was in college, his father, Jason Hotchkiss, kept it running from the Four Corners area. But when Hotchkiss returned in 2024, Tribal Adaptive Organization became his full-time focus again, armed with the administrative experience he’d gained in Chicago.

“It’s nice just being able to work with my dad again,” he says. “We’re really starting to get things moving with Tribal Adaptive, building our funding base. Our goal is to put a team out next year to be competitive.”

The scope has expanded well beyond wheelchair basketball. Tribal Adaptive Organization now runs monoskiing camps, archery programs and mountain biking excursions. This June, they’re taking five athletes to Telluride, Colo., for a mountain biking camp in partnership with Telluride Adaptive Sports.

The Success Stories Keep Coming

Two names come up when Hotchkiss talks about what’s working. Ben Cuevas, a freshman at Eastern Washington, who just started his college career after coming through Tribal Adaptive, and Derek Parrish, who has been with the program longer, plays wheelchair basketball at Southwest Minnesota State University and has one year of college eligibility left.

“It’s cool to see that what we’re doing is working and how we can build upon that,” Hotchkiss says. “We’re finding people on Native American lands that don’t even know about adaptive sports or are losing so much muscle because they’re just not getting out or being active.”

The challenge isn’t just about competition — it’s about basic participation. In communities where adaptive sports resources are scarce, getting people moving becomes the first priority.

Noah Hotchkiss, center, during an early 2014 off-road handcycle day. (Photo courtesy of Hotchkiss family).

A Brief Detour Into Policy

Between the award and college, Hotchkiss had his moment on the national stage. An Aspen Institute grant connected to the Obama administration brought him to the White House twice. He met Michelle Obama and her dogs, spoke to Congress and worked with tribal leaders on policy issues.

“Back then, it was a lot of traveling to [Washington] D.C., doing a lot of outreach, meeting with tribal leaders, really trying to make change on a national level,” he says. “Once I went to college, that kind of died down a little bit.”

Now that he’s back in the Four Corners region, those national connections are becoming useful again. He’s reaching out to community leaders who can help navigate tribal systems and create a bigger impact.

Keep It Simple

Ask Hotchkiss what he’d tell young adaptive athletes, and he doesn’t overcomplicate it.

“Find what you love and do what you love,” he says. “There’s so much stuff that counts as sports now — you got esports, which is video game sports, you got outdoor recreation, it could be competitive sports. What propelled me most was that I loved wheelchair basketball. It’s a big part of my life. I can’t imagine where I’d be without it.”

The key, he suggests, is balancing seriousness with enjoyment.

“When I was training by myself, it’s OK to goof off a little bit, try crazy moves out there and just have fun. But at the same time, take it serious and find mentors,” he says.

The Platform Continues

The magazine issue that started conversations in 2015 is still paying dividends. People recognize Hotchkiss from that article, and some tell him it motivated them to try adaptive sports.

“It kind of gives them something to shoot for, something to feel good about themselves,” he says. “Maybe some kid who’s never seen the sport at all and just got recently injured — they see the articles and they see, wow, there are kids my age doing big things. Can I do big things as well?”

Ten years after receiving the award, Hotchkiss’ assessment is straightforward: “I just can’t express how thankful I am to be a recipient of this award. It’s really built my confidence, it’s really changed my life and given me a platform that I didn’t think I’d be able to have at such a young age.”

The platform continues. It’s just shifted from personal achievement to community building, from Illinois back to Colorado, from individual recognition to team development. The kid who trained alone in Durango is making sure the next generation doesn’t have to.

For more information oh how you can get involved, visit Tribal Adaptive.

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