Hardin, Stran built champions at UA
Duo are the founders of the University of Alabama's Adapted Athletics program
    When the dynamic duo of Brent Hardin and Margaret Stran came to Tuscaloosa in 2003, there was no adapted athletics program at the University of Alabama. Today, the program they founded is among the most successful in the nation, sporting 18 national championship titles spread across their men's and women's wheelchair basketball and tennis teams.
    "I think it feels great to be a part of (the program). When I say that, I don't really think about the championships. I think championships are great and being successful is really important, but it is not how we define success here. We learned pretty early on that winning championships doesn't make you happy, but having a championship culture really does. That's what we work on," Hardin said.
    The husband and wife — Hardin is 56 while Stran is 49 — still lead the program as a combo. They are also associate professors in the kinesiology program at UA, but spend most of their time running the adapted athletics program. Stran agrees with Hardin that the championships are not the motivating factor behind what they do.
    "It's so great (to be able to mentor the young athletes). I think as a society our expectations for people who use wheelchairs or who are amputees or who have another type of ambulatory disability, they can be kind of low. I think that for these students, their expectations are high, but they don't always see a lot of people meeting those expectations that they want to hit," Stran said.
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    "It is awesome to be able to be a resource for them and to say to them, in my experience, or this is what I have learned over the years. That's really cool to share that knowledge," she said. She has been in a wheelchair since an accident 32 years ago.
As a tribute to their dedication to the program, when the new adapted athletics facility opened on Jan. 10, 2018, it was named the Stran-Hardin Arena to honor the couple who had poured so much of themselves into the program.
    The adapted athletics facility was the first of its kind in the country. Hardin and Stran are quick to point out that the arena probably should have been named for someone else, deferring to Mike and Kathy Mouron, the major donors who funded the construction.
    In creating the championship culture that both husband and wife love, they have focused the entire program around the student-athletes. Over the course of the program's history, they have grown from five athletes to currently having more than 30 in the program competing in a range of sports: men's and women's wheelchair basketball and men's and women's wheelchair tennis. A wheelchair track program will be added in 2025.
    "It is like Brent was saying, we have a championship culture but so much of that begins with bringing in really good people and helping them become even better people in terms of knowing themselves, growing, becoming more mature and more responsible and being able to be a part of that journey, helping them grow in so many ways, whether its something related to disability or something related to leadership, or something related to academics, it's a really cool opportunity to be in their lives," Stran said.
    Hardin said almost all of the athletes now in the program are on some form of scholarship ranging from academic scholarships to full athletic scholarships. "Of our over 30 athletes here, almost all of them are on scholarships. Recruiting is intense and very competitive. We recruit athletes from all over the world. When you look out in the arena you see all those flags hanging that represent the countries we have had athletes from. Right now, we have athletes her from India, Israel, France, Great Britain, Spain, New Zealand and from all over the United States and Canada," Hardin said. "We wanted to build something that was student-centered. Brent talks about this all the time, it's giving our student-athletes a same or proportionate experience as the varsity athletes on campus. To do that, you have to bring in good people who can succeed academically, who are good sports, and who can play their sport at the highest level. When we are recruiting athletes, we are not just looking at what they can do on the courts, we are looking at what they can do in the classroom, we are looking at what kind of person they are. I think that's how you build the culture," Stran said.Â
Three questions with Brent Hardin and Margaret Stran
What is Tuscaloosa's greatest attribute?
    "We love Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloosa is home. We travel a lot and go to a lot of neat places and say this is so beautiful, but there is no place else I would rather live because of the combination of the feel of being in a college town, all the things that come with being at a university. We have access to so many wonderful opportunities because we are at the university. We are close to several big cities if we want to do big city things. We can get to the beach quickly. I'm really proud to live here. I love the way the city has become more accessible overall. When we first got here it was very rare to find a sidewalk with a curb cut or a good crosswalk and things like that. Now it is very good. As the city has developed it's always improved. The campus has been completely changed from one that wasn't very accessible to one that is one of the best in the country," Hardin said.
    Stran said, "I think all of the outdoor space and the Riverwalk. We have been here since 2003 and it has gotten better. Especially the new one, the Randall Family (Trailhead), it's very accessible which is a big deal for me. That's been really awesome. When we bring people in to see the campus we say hey, you can go to the 
Riverwalk, you can go here, you can go to the amphitheater. To me those are really great things."
What did you learn from dealing with the pandemic?
    "For us, we still went to work every day. We had to kind of figure out how to keep working. We really couldn't work from home so like all athletic departments, we had to go through incredibly rigorous protocols to operate every day. Through that we leaned a lot. We learned a lot of new things about how to communicate and get things done. Those were all good things and I think they make us more thankful for the interactions that we have now that we weren't able to have there for a couple of years," Hardin said.
Who in the community inspires you?
    "I'm not a big fan of the word inspiration, but I like the term role models. I think Mike and Kathy Mouron are really people I look to, aside form my parents, of course. They, to me, reflect so much of the person I want to become. They are both so giving of their time, of their money, of their talents, of their wisdom. They really show me this is what you can be. This is what it means to treat other people they way you want to be treated. This is what it means to be generous. It's not just one part of them that is generous, it is so many things about them that is generous. To me, they remind me that I can do better, I can give more, whether it is of my time, my talents or my knowledge. They are just great people," Stran said.
About the series
The Tuscaloosa News' People to Watch is a series of stories about everyday Alabamians we believe will do exceptional things in our communities in the coming year. Our readers and journalists nominated this year's slate. The News will publish profiles about these honorees from Dec. 23 through early January.
