WEDDINGTON -- For the first time in Union County history, a wheelchair athlete has joined a school sports team. It is the second time for North Carolina.

Lindsey Good, a 10th-grader at Weddington High School, attended her first track meet Wednesday. It poured down rain.

“I actually finished last, but it was OK because it was raining, ... and the rain made my gloves really slick, so it was hard to gain momentum,” she said.

Good came in under eight minutes for the mile run; her best time is 6:53.

“It was tough goin’ in the rain,” track coach Rick Spencer said. “You could her her slipping and sliding, the wheels going everywhere.”

It was Good’s determination to do her best anyway that inspires her two dozen teammates.

“People have been really supportive of her,” Spencer said. The fastest girls on the team run a mile in under five and a half minutes, he said, so Good’s average time isn’t bad at all.

If Spencer asks her to run three miles, she runs four, he said.

“I want to be the best that I can be ... and represent my school and people with disabilities,” Good said.

Good has spina bifida and is paralyzed from the knees down; she has used a wheelchair her whole life.

“It’s a bit frustrating when I see that the other people can start faster than me,” she said. At school, weaving through the crowd or carrying textbooks can also be difficult, and she sometimes tires of leaving class early to take the elevator to her next one.

“But that’s about it,” she said. “It’s all I know.”

Good started running track in sixth grade. She also plays basketball, goes horseback riding and participates in archery through adaptive sports for people with disabilities.

For track, she has wheels specially designed with push rims and wears gloves that tighten her grip. She runs between two and six miles a day, lifts free weights and bench-presses to stay in shape.

“She’s been able to excel alongside other disabled kids, but I think a lot of times the rest of the world excludes the group of disabled people,” her mother, Mary Good, said.

Her mother was wet and cold after the track meet, but couldn’t be more proud of her daughter and the school for letting her compete.

Good doesn’t compete against her teammates, but must meet a separate standard to qualify for larger high school competitions. To make regionals, she must run a mile in under 11 minutes. Wednesday, she had at least three minutes to spare.

Good raced with one of her best friends, Jill Moore, a junior at Northwest Cabarrus High and the first wheelchair athlete on a regular school sports team in North Carolina.

Moore came in first place ahead of all the girls, running a mile in just over five minutes. She is training with the U.S. winter paralympic team after winning an essay contest.

“A lot of people judge people in chairs as being less than normal, and I want to prove them wrong,” Good said. “People with disabilities can compete at the same level as people without disabilities, just with modifications.”

Graham Tuttle is an 11th-grader on the boys’ track team.

Before Wednesday, “I would’ve thought (a wheelchair) would slow me down, but then Jill was very impressive,” he said.

Tuttle has known Good for a few years.

“I think it’s great that we can integrate people with disabilities into regular sports and treat them as what they are — regular people,” he said. “It shows that our school is ... willing to give people chances and show what they can do.”

Not all states allow wheelchairs on the school track, Spencer said, but “they should.”

Good hopes to attend the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and play wheelchair basketball for the school. She might major in psychology or recreational therapy.

For years now, her motivation comes first from another coach, U.S. Paralympic gold medalist and assistant coach Dave Kiley.

Kiley oversees the Adaptive Sports and Adventures Program in Charlotte.

Good might have had a slippery start Wednesday, but thinks nothing of it.

“I’m motivated to win and be the fastest person out there.”