“At Bayer, people with disabilities have every opportunity.”
It is a sporting and professional career that could only happen at Bayer: more than 30 years ago, Jürgen Schrapp came to Leverkusen from southern Germany as a trainee to take advantage of the unique training conditions for sitting volleyball there. Here, he became one of Germany's most successful parasports athletes and a top executive in Bayer's procurement organization. After participating in seven Paralympics and playing in 400 international matches, the 50-year-old is now ending his career as an active athlete.
Jürgen Schrapp actually comes from Illertissen, located right on the border between Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Of course, even in Swabia, a young man who is passionate about sports can pursue vocational training and devote himself to his sport on the side. However, in the early 1990s, this was not so easy for him. “I have a walking disability, muscle weakness in both legs, and misaligned ankles, which makes it a little harder for me to walk than other people,” he says. ”Bayer and TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen were already known nationwide 30 years ago for enabling young competitive athletes to pursue a dual career that allows them to combine sports and work.”
Dual career a stroke of luck for both sides
So Jürgen Schrapp came to the Rhineland in 1994, began a commercial apprenticeship at Bayer and joined TSV Bayer 04. The decision proved to be a stroke of luck – for both sides. Both his sporting and professional careers flourished. He celebrated a total of 17 German championships with the club and won the European Cup twice. He has played for the national team in a total of seven Paralympic Games since 1996, most recently at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, and has played around 400 international matches. In London, the team won the bronze medal with him as captain in 2012. He and the team were awarded the Silver Laurel Leaf by the German president for this achievement. Ten years earlier, Jürgen Schrapp had already become vice world champion in sitting volleyball.
Within the company, he discovered his passion for purchasing early on in his career. From raw materials and packaging materials to medical devices, Jürgen Schrapp has been in charge of procurement for Bayer and its various business units for almost 30 years. From 2016 to 2021, he headed global procurement for Consumer Health in Basel, then group-wide purchasing for research services, and is currently working on the comprehensive CORE strategy project. His disability has never been an issue: “At Bayer, no distinctions are made; people with disabilities have every opportunity here,” he says, speaking from personal experience.
“Judging people by their abilities, not their limitations”
Competing fairly – and at the same time overcoming the barriers between people with and without disabilities – is what Jürgen Schrapp believes is the great integrative power of his sport in particular. “Sitting volleyball is inclusive because people with and without disabilities play together. As soon as we slide across the floor, we all have the same chances,” he says. “It's also important to me at work that I am treated the same as someone without a disability. That has always been my experience at Bayer. People should be judged by their abilities, not their limitations,” he emphasizes. That is why Schrapp has been involved in the ENABLE Business Resource Group since its inception, promoting the interests of people with disabilities at Bayer and beyond.
But every successful career comes to an end – at least in competitive sports. On the first weekend in May, Jürgen Schrapp will lead the TSV team for the last time as captain and player-coach at the Champions Cup for the six best sitting volleyball club teams in Europe in Leverkusen. But of course, he will remain connected to his sport. For several months now, Schrapp has been chairman of the World Paravolleyball Federation and deputy chairman of TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen, his sporting home. “I am very grateful to Bayer – for the unique start it gave a young person with a disability, for the great sporting and professional successes, and for the openness with which my colleagues have welcomed me at every stage of my career,” he says, looking back on his career at the club and the company.
