Brian Lahti is the team representative for the Utah Haggis Quad Rugby Team. Brian has been playing Quad Rugby for the past 3 years and his team came second in their conference region and won the Reno Rumble. Brian became involved in Quad Rugby after being injured in a serious car accident as a senior in high school. Brian has just graduated from Westminster college in Economics and will be attending University of California - Berkley Law School in the fall this Year.
BRIAN LAHTI: Hi, my name is Brian Lahti and I play on the Utah Haggis, and I like to talk to you about quad rugby. Quad rugby is a game that is played on a basketball court, and it is played between two teams with four players on the court on each team at a time equal eight. The four players on your team can only equal up to eight points. We get classed point values from 0.5 to 3.5 depending on our function and function level. For instance, I'm a one. I lacked triceps and fingers. All I can move is that on my few fingers. You score a point by driving the ball or just going between the goal on the other side of the two cones, and you have to dribble the ball every 10 seconds. You have to get over half court in 15 seconds, and you have to score every 40 seconds. It is a very fast, action-packed game. It is basically you stop the other team by slamming your wheelchair to the other team's wheelchair, and there aren't--I guess, there are some rules. And there are fouls. You can't reach. You can't hit behind the axle for spins, but besides that it's basically just kill the man with the ball. This is a rugby ball in a way that it looks basically just like a volleyball except it has a softer cover. This is a defensive or low-point rugby chair. Low pointers' jobs are mainly to pick, block and play defense, and so we have more of a front-in or pickers, so we can get into them, opposed to offensive chairs that have wings on the side which gives them the ability to try to avoid the pick. There is the USQRA which is the United States Quad Rugby Association which has five different sections. And in each section, depending on the number teams, they can go from 6 to 8 and we play all yearlong. And at end of season, we have sectionals, and the top two teams from each section go to division one national championship, and the third and fourth placer from each section go to division two national championship. Quad rugby as a whole in the international level is big throughout the international community. And I think I believe it is most popular event in paralympic sports, like the paralympic summer games.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. All right, so just say I go to a pretty successful quad rugby team and our reason for success is.
BRIAN LAHTI: I believe we have a pretty successful quad rugby team. Our reason for success is that we all take the sport pretty serious. We train, probably, three to four days a week outside of
practice, and we have communication. We always preach communication and conditioning as two keys to a successful quad rugby team. In a way you that you have to know where your teammates are and what they are doing, and they will know who is going to do what and the switches and the roles, and it just makes for a great time and a great camaraderie between us.
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