Wheelchair athletics in the United States have been around since at least the mid 1950s when the National Wheelchair Athletic Association, now known as the Wheelchair & Ambulatory Sports, USA or WSUSA, organized. WSUSA, along with the International Paralympic Committee and the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs, known as adaptedSports, are just a few of the national and international leagues that promote wheelchair bound athletes and sports.
Sports
In adaptedSports there are organized leagues for wheelchair athletes that play handball, basketball, soccer, football, baseball and track and field. The International Paralympic Committee league governs nine seasonal sports including skiing, ice hockey, power lifting and swimming. The WASUSA organizes archery leagues, billiards, shooting and table tennis. While a league like the WASUSA only requires a membership fee to join, the International Paralympic Committee is modeled after the world Olympic games and promotes professional disabled and wheelchair-bound athletes.
Athletes
Aaron Fotheringham is an extreme wheelchair athlete with spina bifida who performs skateboarding and BMX-adapted tricks. He's one of the first wheelchair athletes to perform a back flip and a 180-degree aerial. "Muderball," a documentary film about paraplegics that play full-contact, quad rugby, went on to win an Audience Award and Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and was nominated for an Oscar in 2006. The film features Mark Zupan, captain of the 2004 and 2008 quad rugby wheelchair team for Team USA's Paralympic Games and a 2004 bronze medal winner.
South African Ernst van Dyk has won numerous awards for track and road racing and hand cycling. Dyk is also a record-setting, nine-time winner of the Boston Marathon's men's wheelchair division, the "winningest Boston Marathon competitor of all time," according to Boston.com.
Leagues
The National Wheelchair Basketball Association, founded in 1948, has more than 200 basketball teams across 22 conferences and seven divisions. The NWBA has youth, men's, women's and intercollegiate teams in the United States and Canada. The National Wheelchair Softball Association, formed in 1976, governs 30 national teams, some of which are sponsored by Major League teams like the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies. The Adaptive Golf Foundation, founded in 1998, sponsors golf leagues for disabled athletes, certifies special needs instructors and supplies golf gear to disabled communities.
Associations
Unlike sports leagues that govern a specific sport, wheelchair athletic associations sponsor and promote leagues in a variety of sports. The New England Wheelchair Athletic Association is a regional organization that governs competitive sporting events for anyone with a physical disability including novice to elite athletes. Leagues sponsored by the NEWAA include archery, table tennis and slalom. The St. Louis Wheelchair Athletic Association governs basketball, track and field, road racing, quad rugby and more for youth and adults with physical disabilities in St. Louis. The Tri-State Wheelchair Athletic Association offers tennis, bocce ball and ice hockey leagues for disabled folks in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
References
- Las Vegas Sun: Fox's Secret Millionaire' Gifts Local Wheelchair Athlete $20k
- SFGate.com: 'Murderball' Stars are Athletes Who are Ready To Roll
- University of Missouri--St. Louis Newsroom: Murderball Star Shares Ups, Downs of Life
- Boston.com: Ernst van Dyk Wins Record 9th Wheelchair Title
- National Wheelchair Basketball Association: History
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