How to Play Wheelchair Basketball

Video Transcript

MIKE SCHLAPPI: Holding a basketball, to me, is natural. I've been doing this since I was a little boy. My dad is a high school basketball coach. I've played in all kinds of city leagues, church leagues, school teams, so this is second nature to me to have a feel of a ball in my hand, and I was fortunately blessed by the good Lord to have some good eye-hand coordination and what not. But occasionally, in wheelchair basketball, we'll get people that--if they are hurt and all of a sudden they are on a wheelchair and they want to play or they want to give this a shot or they want to make some friends, and I realized quickly that they don't have a background in basketball like I do, but they can be taught. And everyone is a little bit different and not everybody is going to be a superstar, an All-American, but we teach them to dribble. We teach them to shoot. We teach them to move the chair. We teach them about offense. We teach them about defense. They learned to get yelled at by the coach. And so it is a disadvantage, but it is not something that somebody can't pick up. I'm not a natural skier. I only skied a handful of times in my life. I love snowmobiling, but you know I believe with the right equipment and the right help, I could go up here to Park City or Snow Bird and learn how to ski, and it is kind of the same way with wheelchair basketball. And we have some guys that they can sit down here at this free throw line and they can shoot 23 free throws and they will knock them 20 of them. Other guys are only going to make 10 of them, and that is just the nature of any sport. Some people are better at certain things than others. One of the most amazing parts of this entire game to me is the athletes and the disabilities that they have and how they acquire those disabilities and how inspiring they are to overcome those disabilities. And we are all a little bit different. Some guys will walk in the gym and they might be missing a foot, and they jump in their wheelchair. Those are amputees. Other guys have a spinal cord injury, maybe from a gunshot, maybe from a car wreck. It could be really low in their back. It could be up in their midchest. Now, if somebody has broken their neck and can't move their arms or legs that is a quadriplegic. Unfortunately, they don't have the arm strength to play wheelchair basketball, to be able to shoot a ball up to the basket. And there are all kinds of different disabilities. Some people were born maybe with spinal bifida, and so they were born that way and they can play wheelchair basketball. Many people become disabled, and it is not uncommon that, you know, 10,000 young men every year in the United States of America between the ages of 18 and 24 fall off a mountain or get in a car wreck or they just get hurt, and it affects their legs, obviously. Like me, I'm a complete paraplegic. I do not have any ability to stand, to walk, to limp, but half of my teammates do. You would see them sitting here like me, but when they get home they wouldn't live in their wheelchair. They put their wheelchair on the back of their van or what not, and they would live around their house on their feet. So it is just very complicated and I don't want to bore you to death, but there are rules that you have to have a certain level of disability to legally to be able to play wheelchair basketball in the United States. It kind of got started after I think it was World War II, when the vets would come home and be missing legs or have spinal cord injuries, and they needed something to do because they were competitive and love sports. And so the National Wheelchair Basketball Association was form 60 years ago. It is still in existences to this day. We've got juniors' teams, women's teams, college teams, over a hundred men's teams, which I'm on the Utah Wheel and Jazz, and we follow college rules. And of course, we are not rich and famous, and we don't get paid like the NBA athletes, but it is just a competitive game. This is not just a game where you go out and you sit in a wheelchair and someone pushes you down the floor. This is competitive. It is rough.