Track and Field: Seneca wheelchair qualifier Josh Doloski faces big test at state

Josh Doloski may not look like the typical athlete one might expect to see at the IHSA Boys Track and Field State Meet in downstate Charleston this weekend, but the ability, pride, heart and toughness of this Seneca High School sophomore compares favorably to anyone competing on the “big blue track” of O’Brien Stadium.

Doloski has suffered from Bruck Syndrome, a rare disease that makes bones brittle and has caused him to be wheelchair-bound since birth. He is one of several Times-area athletes vying for a state medal this weekend, his events being the 100- and 200-meter dashes in the wheelchair division held on Saturday.

The Irish standout admitted he was a little nervous heading into his school’s own 1A sectional last Friday, despite the fact that athletic director Steve Haines said he had been “crushing” the IHSA’s required maximum time in virtually every meet this season.

And Haines was right. There was no need for worry, as that night Doloski earned his trip south with personal bests of 26.20 seconds in the 100 meters and 49.55 seconds in the 200.

“I think Coach Maxwell wanted me to do the 400 too, but I thought, well, that might be pushing it a little,” Doloski said. “Maybe next year.”

The story of his path to Charleston is an amazing one.

Doloski was born 16 years ago in the Ukraine, where the family members he still has in the war-torn region have escaped the recent Russian invasion and moved to Hungary.

It was in 2011 that Doloski was adopted by the family of Seneca and college English teacher Michael Doloski; his mom, Jennifer, a chef at Milton Pope Junior High and Seneca theater sponsor; and his five siblings — older sisters Anna and Rebecca, brothers Daniel and Caleb at Seneca High School and David at Milton Pope.

Though he started to learn the English language when he entered school in Seneca at the age of 7, his dedication to extra speech classes has him now speaking it so fluently one wouldn’t know he is foreign born.

Because of his malady, over the years Doloski has suffered over 20 broken bones and so far undergone nine surgeries, including some to place metal rods in his limbs, as well as a plethora of other procedures to enable him to get through an average day.

With such brittle bones, it’s understandable that sports was not a first concern for him and his family. However, there was an attraction to the game of basketball, a sport he enjoys so much that he works at the scorer’s table at Fighting Irish hoop home games.

“We never really looked into sports, other than a few games in grade school classes that I could do, which wasn’t much,” Doloski said. “Then one day my mom saw something about wheelchair basketball and asked me if I’d like to try it. I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ We knew that I would have breaks every now and then during practices and games, so that was just a normal thing for me.

“After playing it for three years, it got to be just the same thing for me. So after that, when I was coming up on high school, we started to talk about track. I couldn’t do it at first because of a problem with my arm, but everything was good for this year, and I’m in it.”

After traveling to Wisconsin to attend a training course conducted by the maker of competitive wheelchairs, Doloski took to his new sport like a natural, thanks in part to the support of his Irish teammates. He admits he’s still learning, and that because he’s almost always the lone wheelchair competitor during this spring’s regular season, knows facing fellow wheelchair athletes in Charleston will be a real challenge.

It is, however, one that he welcomes.

“I don’t really know how [IHSA State] is going to go down. ... I’m still kind of learning as I’m going. … It’s all so new, so I’ll go down there and see the other racers, learn from them and try not to get hurt.

“I don’t know that I have any goals for state, but I do know I don’t want to get last.”