The Cal 100: No. 85 -- Robert Paylor
No. 85: Robert Paylor
Cal Sports Connection: A member of Cal's 2017 national championship rugby team, Paylor suffered a devastating spinal cord injury in that game that left him a quadriplegic
Claim to Fame: Four years after suffering his injury, Paylor walked across the Greek Theater stage to accept his Cal diploma, and he now devotes himself to inspirational speaking
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It would have more than reasonable for Robert Paylor to decide his life ended on May 6, 2017. Playing in the national championship rugby match for Cal, Paylor suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic.
“They were still playing rugby around my numb, motionless body,” Paylor told the Mercury News in a 2020 interview. “I looked like a corpse.”
Doctors gave him little hope. They said he’d never walk again. Quietly, they weren’t convinced he would survive.
But on Aug. 29, 2021 — barely four years later — Paylor fulfilled a promise to himself: He rose from his wheelchair, walked across the stage at the Greek Theater and accepted his Cal diploma. He had not merely survived, he thrived.
As he carefully maneuvered toward Chancellor Carol Christ — with the help of a walker and the steadying hand of Cal associate head coach Tom Billups — a crowd of more than 6,000 people stood and cheered. And cried.
“While this was only 5 to 10 yards,” he said, "it’s some of the most important 5 to 10 yards I’ll ever walk in my life.”
He said afterward his emotions included humility and gratitude.
“Because there was a time I was laying in a hospital bed and I couldn’t move anything. I couldn’t feel anything,” he said. “I’m fighting for my life and the thing that was getting me through that moment was the eventual dream that I had to be able to walk across the stage and to be able to share this story with thousands — I hope millions — of people across this world.
“I hope when they saw me walk across that stage they saw themselves overcoming their own challenges.”
Paylor actually finished his course work at Cal’s Haas School of Business a year earlier, but the COVID-19 pandemic postponed formal graduation ceremonies.
Just 20 years old when his life changed forever, Paylor faced a long and difficult recovery. He developed pneumonia, could not swallow or breathe independently and he lost 60 pounds. He had to have his lungs pumped every three hours, often by his mother.
After a year at a specialized rehab clinic in Denver, he returned to the Bay Area to resume classes in the fall of 2018.
Now Paylor does inspirational speaking, reaching out as an example for others facing their own serious challenges. He said his ordeal gave purpose to his life.
“He was given a cause and a calling, really, in his soul and in his mind that this is a chance and something that was almost a gift,” said his father, Jeff Paylor. “I know that sounds weird. But to literally impact so many other people across the nation, the world.”
Cover photo of Robert Paylor at his Cal graduation in 2021 courtesy of Cal Athletics
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo