When he was 20 years old, Shaun McCoy became one of the rare people who acquired cat scratch disease (CSD) and ended up in a coma. Appalled by his physical condition afterward, he began to train and found himself interested in cage fighting.

His experience in the cage taught him a lot about taking risks, competition, and his ideas of what danger entails.

What I learned while cagefighting: Shaun McCoy at TEDxColumbiaSC

Published on Feb 26, 2014


A writer at an early age, Shaun penciled out his first full-length novel in middle school. At age 20, Shaun was struck with CSD, which put him in a coma and hospitalized him for two weeks.