In early December, Bob Steadward completed his third and final term as head of the International Paralympic Committee, a departure that made only a blip on the international sports radar screen.
Like the athletes within the Paralympic movement itself, Steadward's accomplishments aren't widely recognized beyond the disabled sport community, even in his home country.
Yet this University of Alberta physical education professor has been the driving force behind Paralympic sport's evolution to the modern age -- it's transformation from something once purely about rehabilitation to a movement based on the principles of high-performance sport.
Not so long ago, those kinds of ideas were unheard of in the disabled sport community, such as it existed. In the 1960s, when Steadward first became involved in organizing wheelchair sports while a student at U of A, disabled sport was mainly organized through hospitals by doctors, nurses and other health professionals who had no background in sport.
"When I first got involved, it all seemed to be managed by hospitals in Canada because that's where people were for long-term care," said Steadward, who does not have a physical disability.
"There were those who said maybe we should be promoting more than just exercise but the doctors and nurses and physios knew nothing about sport so that's where I came in. I said let's get them out to the sports facilities and introduce them to the gym and the track."
"In the sixties and seventies, you noticed that all the games were run by the medical community and they didn't concern themselves with wins and losses, medals and records. They were more concerned with the value it had for rehabilitation.
"There wasn't much opportunity for coaches to get involved but in some places it was starting to crop up. People with a high-performance sporting background began to get involved. That was really the key but it took a lot of years for that to happen."
Steadward envisioned a world in which disabled athletes would train and compete just like their able-bodied counterparts. He believed they should have coaches and rivalries and be part of a national sporting system that could fully integrate them into training and administrative areas.
He also thought it was possible that the public might one day see Paralympic sport for simply what it is, rather than something especially heroic, charitable, or that much different from traditional athletics.
By the time he presided over his final Paralympic Games in Sydney during October of 2000, much of Steadward's vision had come true.
Athletes representing roughly 170 nations, compared with 43 only 12 years earlier competed at new levels, with an emphasis overwhelmingly on competition, achievement and high performance. More than one million spectators left those Games with a true appreciation of what Paralympic sport is all about.
"Ecstasy doesn't even express what I felt at those Games," Steadward said. "I spent a lot of time just watching the athletes, but I also watched the kids and their parents and the volunteers and the staff. Words can't describe my feelings, the pride of seeing so many people whose attitudes towards people with disabilities had changed so remarkably."
What occurred at Sydney was in large part thanks to Steadward's efforts to reform Paralympic sport through his writing and research at the University of Alberta.
It was those ideas that helped create the playing field in disabled sport that exists today.
"One big accomplishment was the work I did in the 1980s putting together proposals and papers saying we need to restructure disabled sport, saying we can't have a rehabilitative model," he said. "We had to move towards excellence and elite Paralympic sport. I'm proud that I was able to change attitudes by sending out these proposals around the world which said we can no longer treat our athletes like patients."
Steadward believes that Sydney was merely the culmination of a change that first became evident in Seoul in 1988, the first time the Paralympics were held at the same venue as the Olympics.
"The modern Olympics traces its origins back to 1896, well, I think the modern Paralympics started in 1988 because that's when we started to have a solid relationship with the International Olympic Committee and they took more of an interest in hosting the Paralympics. And for the first time our athletes started to be treated like athletes rather than patients."
Steadward believed that, in order to reach full potential, the Paralympics had to become more closely aligned with the Olympics themselves, a relationship he acknowledges is a delicate one.
"It has to be handled with kid gloves," said Steadward, who was elected an IOC member in August of 2000, "because we're seen as the poor cousin needing help and we don't want that."
While at one time Steadward argued for full integration with the Olympics, he later decided the Paralympics were stronger as a stand-alone event. However, his successful pursuit to put the organization of both Games under one umbrella has put the Paralympics on a stronger footing.
Last June, Steadward and former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch signed an agreement to officially make the two Games part of one sports festival.
"I spent 15 years trying to convince IOC members and international federations that our athletes are athletes and deserve the same treatment and support. That is now a reality. Inclusion and integration is taking place today but it's due to a lot of hard work the last 20 years."