Mackenzie Clay just began his final quarter at Seattle University. I sat down with the chemistry major to get his thoughts on graduation, quad rugby and his mom's work in "little world."

Sam Kettering (SK): Are you excited to graduate?

Mackenzie Clay (MC): Yeah. I have a busy quarter though.

SK: So, what attracted you to Seattle U?

MC: Well, my mom [fine arts professor Carol Wolfe Clay] works here, so I've been around here a lot. That definitely played a role. And it's also in Seattle, and I also broke my neck in the middle of my senior year, so I wasn't ready to go anywhere else, really. I applied to a bunch of other colleges out-of-state, but I decided to stay here. A lot because of my spinal-cord injury, but I might have ended up coming here anyway. And now that I have been here, I'm definitely glad that I did [choose t

he university].

SK: Part of the reason I'm speaking with you is the play "little world," and your mother told me that your accident was one of the inspirations for her work in the play. Do you have any feelings about that or were you aware of the project?

MC: I don't know too much about it. I know my mom was on sabbatical last year and, as part of that, she made a lot of puppets. And that Ki [Gottberg] wrote a play using those puppets. And that's kind of all I know about it.

SK: Cool. How is it being a professor's son? Do you see your mom much around campus?

MC: Well, I'm in chemistry, so I'm in Bannan a lot, and she's in Fine Arts, so I don't really see her that much.

SK: And what drew you to chemistry as a major?

MC: I've always liked chemistry I guess. I had a really good science teacher in middle school. So that gave me a few advantages going into high school. It just seemed to be something I was really good at and thought about a lot.

SK: Do you have any ideas what you want to do

after graduation?

MC: Yeah, I'm going to be applying to graduate schools over the next few months.

SK: Do you still want to stick in the Seattle area?

MC: No, actually I want to go to California. I really like the L.A. area. Something like that.

SK: You said Seattle U ended up being the right choice for you. What about the university and its community made that so?

MC: Well, I've had a lot of really great teachers here and a lot of really great research opportunities. Because I've done research for the chemistry department for the past few years.

SK: And may I ask how your injury has impacted you as a student and if there's anything you'd like people to know when they read the article?

MC: There's not really anything I think people need to know, necessarily. But it's definitely been an experience figuring out how to do things. Because I don't have hand function. So one of the first things I had to learn to do after breaking my neck was learn how to write again. So it's been kind of a slow process, but I've gotten to the point where I can do a lot more than I used to. School kind of helped me, it kind of forced me to figure out how to do stuff like that.

SK: Do you do any activities? I think your mom mentioned you do quad rugby.

MC: Yeah, I play on a quad rugby team.

SK: And how did you get involved in that?

MC: Well, when I was in the hospital I saw a movie called "Murderball." Have you seen it?

SK: Yeah["Murderball" is a film about paraplegics who play full-contact rugby].

MC: Yeah, so I was kind of nervous about it at first after I saw the movie. But once I came home from the hospital and from rehab I didn't really have anything to do. I ended up watching that movie over and over. So I ended up, one day not long after I came home, I called up a local quad rugby team and I went to a practice just to check it out and see what it was like. And when I got there they had a chair ready for me and they like threw me into it so I started practicing that first day and just really loved it ever since, I guess.

SK: What's quad rugby like, for people who might not have seen "Murderball?"

MC: So we play on a basketball court, and there's four of us on a team out there at a time. And we have special wheelchairs designed so that we can run into each other as fast as hard as we can. And that's a lot of what happens.

SK: And what's the thing you'll miss most about Seattle U, if anything?

MC: I haven't really thought about that yet. I'm still just going through stuff. Hopefully wherever I go to grad school will have good teachers and all too.

SK: Fair enough.

Sam may be reached at skettering@su-spectator.com