Episode #038 - Please welcome Personnel Security Specialist Trevon Jenifer. Trevon Jenifer was born without limbs due to a rare disease called Congenital Phocomelia. When Trevon was 4 years old, his step-dad (Eric Brown) came into his life and helped raise him. All of Trevon’s siblings were participating in sports, so Eric found an organization that offered Wheelchair Track and Wheelchair Basketball.
Trevon broke and still holds the records in the 100-, 200-, 400- and 800-meter races for Wheelchair Track in the U11 and U14 age groups. He competed in Wheelchair Track and Basketball until the age of 12, then competed in Wrestling his junior and senior year in High School. His senior year he finished 3rd in the State of Maryland and has a record of 32-8. Trevon was inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2006, Trevon wrote an autobiography about his life called From the Ground Up.
From 2006-2011, Trevon attended Edinboro University of Pennsylvania where earned his Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Sociology. He was a member of the Edinboro University Wheelchair Basketball Team, where he went from being the 8th man on an 8-man roster to the best player on the Team by 2009. He was a 2x All-American (2010 and 2011) and Captain from 2009-2011. Trevon made his first Team USA appearance in 2009 when he was on the U23 Team that took Gold in Junior World’s Championship. He then made the Men’s National Team in 2010 and has been a member ever since. He has won Gold in the Parapan American Games in 2011 (Guadalajara, Mexico), 2015 (Toronto, Canada), and 2019 (Lima, Peru). Trevon won two Silver in the Worlds Championship Games in 2014 in Incheon, South Korea, and in Hamburg, Germany in 2018. He is a 3X Paralympic medalist, winning a Bronze Medal in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, Gold Medalist in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio, Gold Medalist in 2020 Paralympic Games in Toyko. In 2013-2015, Trevon played professional Wheelchair Basketball in the south of France.
Trevon is a proud father to a baby girl and baby boy. While being a full-time Father, Trevon is also an active member in his community, where volunteers as an assistant coach for the Edinboro University Wheelchair Basketball Team. He does countless demonstrations and motivational speeches, for schools (elementary and up), ADA, FBI, FEMA, YMCA, etc. all over the United States, speaking on topics that cover perseverance, Paralympic movement, bullying, and adaptive/disability awareness.
Social Media: www.treyj5.com, Facebook: Trevon Jenifer, Twitter: @Trevon_Jenifer,
Instagram: @TreyJenifer
Hosted and Edited by: Cody Starken, Associate Producer and assistant editor: Starr Vazquez
This episode is sponsored by the United States Secret Service. www.secretservice.gov
Special Thanks to PSS Trevon Jenifer for his time and support, and SMD for their support.
Music is “Nova Police” by Hermelin, found here: www.hermelin.bandcamp.com/track/nova-police. The music used in the podcast was altered from the original soundtrack by cutting specific sections of the music to create the intro and outro of the podcast. This work Attribution-Noncommercial-sharealike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US), which license definition is located here: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
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