After he was paralyzed below the neck in a car accident, football alumnus Robby Barbieri became an advocate for change that improves lives in his adopted home state
Family, football and country music brought Minnesotan Robby Barbieri south for college. He found all three at Vanderbilt, following in a sister’s footsteps on campus, suiting up for the Commodores on Saturdays and exploring the nooks and crannies of Nashville’s music scene as often as possible.
“Looking back, going to Vanderbilt was probably one of the best decisions of my life,” Barbieri says. “I went from a small town Northern boy, and then I branched out.”
He came for four years and then made Nashville home.
Then a car accident in 2022 forever altered his life. Though he was paralyzed below the neck, he refused to let anyone take his future. In fact, he worked to change countless lives for the better in his adopted home state by advocating for legislation that allows thousands of Tennesseans with disabilities to maintain careers and care for families.
“Never in a million years would I have thought that what I consider the greatest achievement in my life would happen when I was quadriplegic,” Barbieri says. “I think back to my accident and those early days and how isolating all these feelings were. And then to accomplish something in changing the law, it just flipped everything in my mindset.”
Barbieri spent three weeks in the ICU at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, then moved to an extended stay at the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation facility in Atlanta. There he worked with assistive technology that helped him regain access to day-to-day activities. While speaking on a Zoom call, for instance, a head-tracking system converts head movements into cursor control, and biting down on a mouthpiece allows him to click the mouse. He also controls his phone with tongue movements.
“So I can be at church watching the Vikings play without having to move my hands,” Barbieri says, somewhat mischievously. “It’s all this new technology that empowers people to live life on their terms.”
Barbieri’s greatest medical needs and expenses were, and remain, caregiving. He needs approximately 16 hours a day of assistance, which winds up costing more than $100,000 a year. He couldn’t function without Medicaid covering what private insurers won’t.
“It’s a common tendency in our culture to celebrate self-sufficiency. But just being able to depend on people, I think it’s a gift, even if it didn’t feel like it at the beginning.”
But to qualify for Medicaid in Tennessee, he couldn’t have more than $2,000 in savings or earn more than $2,800 a month. Not only that, but a spouse’s income or assets beyond those thresholds would also have rendered him ineligible. Tennessee was one of only a handful of states that hadn’t closed such a loophole in its Medicaid rules.
To receive the care he needed, he couldn’t reenter the workforce. And he and his wife couldn’t remain married.
“I realized this is a silent but big issue,” Barbieri says. “It may not affect millions of people, but there’s thousands of people in Tennessee who I learned were not getting married and not pursuing careers, just so they could keep their Medicaid.
“The more I learned, the angrier I got.”
A connection forged at Vanderbilt helped him turn anger into advocacy. As a walk-on, Barbieri was initially overwhelmed by the size and speed of football players in the SEC. The Vanderbilt strength and conditioning coach at the time, Dwight Galt, was instrumental in developing his physical and mental game. It was Galt, after the accident, who introduced Barbieri to Josh Basile, a disability advocate with quadriplegia. Basile had earned his law degree, gotten married and started a family after he was paralyzed. To Barbieri he was an example of the full life still possible.
Basile also encouraged Barbieri to get involved with efforts to change Tennessee law working with the Tennessee Disability Coalition. In January 2024, the TennCare for Working Individuals with Disabilities Act was introduced, allowing working people with disabilities an affordable buy-in option for Medicaid coverage. In April, when the bill he helped bring to life passed both legislative chambers unanimously, Barbieri proudly looked on from the floor of the legislature.
He’s not done with advocacy. He founded Music City Wheels, a nonprofit “dedicated to enriching the lives of individuals with disabilities across Tennessee.” He also returned to work with a job in finance with Numotion, a wheelchair and mobility equipment company. The job offer came the same day the bill passed.
“One thing that caught me by surprise about being paralyzed is it opened my heart to the role other people have in helping,” Barbieri says. “It’s a common tendency in our culture to celebrate self-sufficiency. But just being able to depend on people, I think it’s a gift, even if it didn’t feel like it at the beginning.”
—Graham Hays
