Famous Autistic People Part 1: Impressive Autistic Athletes

Autistic athletes probably aren’t the first thing you think of when talking about famous autistic people. I still have a bit of Olympics and Paralympics fever so in the spirit of the games, I thought I would break some stereotypes and highlight autistic athletes.

While I think I may turn this into a famous autistic people series, I didn’t want to include obvious or generally well-known ones like Albert Einstein or Elon Musk. Elon Musk gets enough attention, he’ll be fine without a proper mention on my humble blog. I thought it would be more fun to talk about autistic athletes since that’s a less-covered subject. Admittedly, I also wanted to talk about autistic athletes because I am the jock in my relationship. After a month of Olympics and Paralympics, my husband is over me talking about sports but I am not over talking about sports. Good thing I have a blog as an outlet for my infodumping!

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An Undiagnosed Autistic Athlete

While I didn’t know it for most of my playing career, I was an autistic athlete. Like most American kids, I dabbled my way through a few youth sports. I played basketball and softball but didn’t really excel at either for reasons I can now recognize were related to my autism. In softball, I notoriously didn’t swing at any balls during games. Basketball it was the same. At practice, I had no problem taking shots, but during games I would just feel overwhelmed and the lights were too bright and distracting.

I found my way to volleyball when I was 11 and a love affair was started. I played on multiple teams throughout junior high and high school. Ultimately, I opted to follow the family legacy of going to UW rather than pushing for a scholarship at a smaller school out of state. They were national champions my senior year of high school which is how I ended up playing club volleyball through most of college. It was honestly one of the best times of my life. We got to play for our love of the sport without all the pressure and schedule demands of playing D1.

Sensory Processing on the Court

Despite how much I played and the pure amount of hours I put in, I always felt like there was something different in how I processed things compared to my teammates. It’s worth mentioning my ADHD was also undiagnosed at the time so it’s difficult to untangle my sensory experiences as being a result of the autism or the ADHD, but thus the life of being AuDHD.

I consistently struggled with timing and basic things like tossing balls. Visual and motor areas of the brain tend to be poorly connected for people with autism, thus my inability to properly judge how far and how hard to toss balls to my poor setters. I knew I lost the ball in the light more often than my teammates did, something I’m sure they thought was me making constant excuses. There were multiple injuries over the years, all related to muscle imbalances. I would go to physical therapy and they would comment on my inability to balance. These are both things I’ve learned are common for autistic people.

Autism Un-Awareness

I didn’t have any of the vocabulary for it yet but I knew I processed things differently. After making a point, my teammates or coach would tell me good job for finding the hole but I’d have no recollection of even looking for one, let alone seeing and aiming for one. People with autism often talk about feeling like they have multiple processors going and that’s what it felt like for me. There was one part of my brain focused on the actual movements I needed to make while looking for the blockers. The other part of my brain was scanning the rest of the court and signaling to me what angle to take.

The two processors seemed to be operating separately from one another then somehow communicating without my awareness. As you’ll read, some autistic athletes say there are ways their autism has helped them succeed. I imagine this is part of what they’re talking about with that. But without knowing that’s what you’re experiencing, it feels more confusing than superpower.

Famous Autistic Athletes

I know you’re not here to read about my fun but lackluster 20ish-year-long volleyball career, so I’ll get to the real reason you’re here. Read on for the first part of my famous autistic people series: autistic athletes edition!

Alex Reid-MMA

Alex Reid is an MMA fighter who also won Celebrity Big Brother in 2010. Relentlessly bullied as a child, he wasn’t diagnosed until the age of 45 through a chance encounter. He almost ran into a young autistic boy at the park and ended up befriending the boy’s parents. Alex started to see similarities between himself and the boy which ultimately led to him getting diagnosed. He has said that he feels like he is often misconstrued during interviews. He also says his autism diagnosis has helped him understand why that is and has helped him understand himself better.

Gary Neal

Gary Neal had a long basketball career with an uphill journey to the NBA. He was eligible for the draft in 2007 but went undrafted. Gary first played professionally abroad from 2007 to 2010 before getting signed by the San Antonio Spurs. He played in the NBA for seven years and then returned to playing abroad before retiring in 2019. Since retiring, he has been coaching NCAA Division 1. Unlike other NBA players on this list, Gary Neal’s autism is notable as he was diagnosed at a young age.

Anthony Ianni

Anthony Ianni was the first autistic D1 college basketball player. At the age of four, he was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder and told he’d never be an athlete. Doctors didn’t expect him to graduate high school, let alone college, and that he’d end up living in a group home with other autistic kids. He started playing sports at age seven and struggled with taking directions too literally (relatable). Anthony says he also found the lights, crowds, buzzers, and environment in general to be sensory overwhelming. He used sports to cope with his stress and thrived off of proving people wrong.

When he became the first D1 basketball player with autism, the team’s staff and coaches adjusted coaching styles to work with his autism. They adjusted how drills were explained and what terminology was used. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2012. He has since written a memoir called Centered: Autism, Basketball, and One Athlete’s Dreams.

Chris Morgan

The next famous autistic athlete on our list is Chris Morgan, an Olympic rower for Australia. He competed in Beijing in 2008, won bronze in London in 2012, and competed in Rio in 2016. He attributes his success to his neurodivergent brain. He’s said that with a neurotypical brain, he doesn’t think it would have been possible for him to achieve what he has. He credits his autism for the attention to detail and obsessive drive it gives him.

Chris has struggled with feeling ostracized and excluded from his peers. Additionally, he’s also struggled with feeling misconstrued and is often misinterpreted as being arrogant. He says once he was diagnosed at age 28, things improved for him once he had the right framework to work from.

Ulysse Delsaux

Ulysse Delsaux is an autistic NASCAR driver. He grew up in France, where he was diagnosed with autism as a child. Ulysse was nonverbal until the age of five. His dad used go-kart racing as a way to connect with him and have fun so he could have a more comfortable life. A passion was ignited and Ulysse hasn’t stopped driving since. Ulysse says that the more confidence he gained in the car, the more confidence he gained outside of the car as well. As he became a more confident driver, it enabled him to be more social and less isolated.

Clay Marzo

Pro-surfer Clay Marzo is the next autistic athlete in our series of famous autistic people. Clay grew up in Lahaina, Maui, and was obsessed with being in the water. While he was a natural in the water, on land he struggled socially. He finds it hard to hold conversations and struggles to process things quickly. His obsession with the water turned into a love of surfing and despite being diagnosed at age 18, he has turned his love of surfing into a successful career. Originally landing his first sponsorship at age 11, Clay’s surfing on a six-figure income.

John Howard

John Howard is another MMA fighter on our list of famous autistic athletes. John has been fighting professionally since 2004. Out of 49 matches, he’s won 29 of them. His nickname is “Doomsday”, as in the villain who killed Superman. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of 33. After his diagnosis, he said so many things made sense. Suddenly he understood why he did certain things and reacted in certain ways.

Jim Eisenreich

Jim is a former Major League Baseball player who had a 15-year-long career. He struggled with Tourette syndrome which forced him to retire from 1984 to 1987. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s as well, which caused him to struggle with sensory difficulties that also contributed to his early retirement. After undergoing treatment, Jim returned to the MLB and played until 1998. In 1997, he even won a World Series championship with the Florida Marlins. He currently resides in Kansas City and runs an organization that helps children with Tourette syndrome find personal success.

Joe Barksdale

Next up on our list of autistic athletes: Joe Barksdale, a former NFL player who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 30. He had a full-ride basketball scholarship to Louisiana State University. In 2011, Joe was a third-round draft pick for the Oakland Raiders. He also played for the Rams, Chargers, and Cardinals throughout his NFL career. He retired in 2019 to pursue his singing career full time so he’s even well rounded in his ambitions.

Joe has said he always struggled to interact with people. He found it hard to decipher their emotions as well as his own and always felt misinterpreted. (Wildly relatable, Joe.) He describes growing up undiagnosed as feeling like you’re surrounded by people who don’t speak the same language as you. His adult diagnosis came about after a long-time therapist suggested he seek a diagnosis, which wasn’t the first time someone had brought up autism to him. (Again, very relatable, Joe.)

Tony Snell

Tony Snell is a basketball player who played nine seasons in the NBA. In college, he was third-team all Mountain West Conference and the MWC tournament MVP for 2013. Tony was diagnosed as an adult after his son’s diagnosis led to his own. He says he always felt different and having a diagnosis helped him make sense of things. He works to bring awareness to the problem of underdiagnosis of autism in the black community. To support those goals, he started the Tony Snell Foundation to promote understanding and acceptance of autism. His foundation puts a special focus on supporting minorities who are diagnosed with autism, especially those living in inner cities.

Sam Holness

Sam Holness is the Guinness World Record holder as the first openly autistic triathlete to compete in the Ironman World Championships. In 2022, he finished the race in 13 hours. This is admittedly unfathomable to me and makes me all the more impressed with his successes. Sam is one of only a few black triathletes and is working to bring more diversity to the sport. He was diagnosed at the age of three and didn’t learn how to ride a bike until he was 14. Sam didn’t let that hold him back, trying multiple sports before settling on triathalon.

In addition to his athletic successes, Sam also earned a degree in sports science which he applies to his training. According to Sam, autism is his superpower because of his ability to hyperfocus. I can’t argue with that because I don’t know how else one would physically exert themselves for 13 hours straight without the ability to hyperfocus.

Highlighting Autistic Paralympians

Michael Brannigan

Michael Brannigan is a track and field Paralympian. He won the gold medal in Rio in 2016. In the Paris Games in 2024, he won the bronze medal. He has also broken the world record twice and in 2017 he was named Team USA’s Male Paralympic Athlete of the Year. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Additionally, he was nonverbal until the age of five and had a severe learning disability and speech impediment.

Despite his hardships, he began running when he was eight years old and was a six-time All-American in high school. He was the first person with autism to break four minutes in the mile and has been competing on a world stage since 2015. Michael competes in the T20 class for intellectually impaired athletes. He was recruited for college but didn’t meet NCAA educational requirements. As a result, he accepted an offer to run and train with the New York Athletic Club.

David Campion

David Campion is an Australian snowboarder who has competed in multiple sports on the world stage. David has competed for Australia’s Special Olympics team in both basketball and snowboarding. While he can still be found with a basketball in his hand during the summer, he says he probably prefers snowboarding. According to David, the team nature of basketball puts more pressure on him. Snowboarding is more individual so he can enjoy it more rather than worrying about the pressure on him or his teammates. David won second place in the 2015 Special Olympics Australia National Winter Games and has competed in Special Olympics events all over the world.

Jessica-Jane Applegate

Jessica-Jane Applegate is a British Paralympic swimmer with autism. She is a two-time Paralympic swimming champion who has won seven medals at Paralympic Events. Jessica-Jane set a world record in the 2012 Summer Paralympics. She won gold in London in 2012. In Tokyo in 2020, she won gold as well as two bronze medals. She also won a bronze medal in Rio in 2016 so it’s safe to say she has a particularly awesome autistic collection. (It’s certainly shinier than my rock collection.)

Jessica-Jane was diagnosed with autism when she was in preschool. She was the victim of a lot of bullying and finds busy places overwhelming. When she started swimming, she found the water calming and finally felt like she fit in somewhere. Despite being diagnosed young, Jessica-Jane was initially diagnosed with learning disabilities before finding out she was autistic.

Kaitlin Bounds

Kaitlin Bounds is a Paralympian for Team USA in track and field. Kaitlin has experienced health issues since the day she was born, needing heart and lung bypass surgery when she was only one day old. She was diagnosed with autism at the age of four and suffers from asthma as well. Kaitlin began running at the age of 14 and says she uses it as an escape. She attended Arkansas Tech University on a cross-country scholarship. She first qualified for Team USA in 2017 and competed in the 2024 Paralympics where she came in 6th place.

An Autistic Beauty Queen

I know, I know. Putting a pageant queen on a list of athletes is probably controversial but hear me out. To compete in pageants requires training and dedicated practice just like being an athlete does. Plus, I really want to bring some awareness to this autistic beauty queen but it’s a little hard to place her in my famous autistic people series so I decided to put her on this one.

Alexis Wineman

Alexis Wineman is the first known autistic contestant in Miss America. She was crowned Miss Montana in 2012 and won the America’s Choice award at the Miss America pageant in 2013. Alexis was diagnosed with autism when she was 11 and was bullied as a child. Like so many others on this list, she says she always felt different from other people and her autism diagnosis helps her understand why. Alexis is an autism advocate and still offers speaking events.

Get Inspired by Autistic Athletes

These autistic athletes haven’t let their autism hold them back, and you shouldn’t either! I hope you found this list of autistic athletes inspiring. Use their insane levels of determination to encourage you the next time something feels too hard. Believe in yourself the way they do, even if it’s a much smaller victory like actually scheduling that appointment you’ve been putting off for six months. You can do it, I know you can.