What
do five wheels, an orange ball, and the University of Alabama have in common?
That would be the University of Alabama Men’s and Women’s Wheelchair Basketball
teams. According to the Women’s team President, Lindsey Metz, these teams
function just like any other UA athletic team, with practices Monday through
Friday, lifting weights three times a week, and voluntary extra practices where
athletes can work on their game shots in small focus groups with the aid of
Brent Hardin, the Wheelchair Athletic Director.
Metz,
in her first year as President, got involved with the team after coming to a
wheelchair basketball camp run by UA while she was in high school. Metz, like
many of her teammates, was recruited by Hardin, made a campus visit, and
eventually committed to the program. “I played in high school, and decided I
wanted to go on to the next level,” she said. However, a number of Metz’s
teammates followed a slightly different route to the University and the team.
According to Metz, the United States is currently the only country with college
wheelchair athletics, so some international students came specifically to play.
The women’s team currently has members from Canada and Germany who came to play
at the university.
In
order to play wheelchair basketball, an athlete must have a certifiable
disability. However, that disability does not necessarily mean the athlete must
require a wheelchair. “You essentially have to have a doctor say that you can’t
perform regular sports,” Metz said. So while any legally disabled student may
tryout for the team, at this moment, an “able-bodied” person cannot play for a
university team. Sorry, everyone.
So
what’s the difference between wheelchair basketball and the basketball most
people are familiar with? The main differences between wheelchair basketball
and able-bodied basketball deal with dribbling and travelling and fouls. In
wheelchair basketball, a player must dribble every two pushes of his or her
wheelchair, or else it is considered travelling. As far as fouls are concerned,
the essential difference is in the way they are called. There are still five
fouls, but in wheelchair basketball, most fouls are chair fouls, of which there
is a variety. Also special in wheelchair basketball? The type of wheelchair
that the athletes use. The wheelchair used in a game is much lighter than an
everyday wheelchair, to help with speed, and has a bar across the front near
the player’s feet to prevent players getting tangled during contact. The game
chair also has angled wheels to allow for faster turns, straps for safety, and
a fifth wheel for both stability and balance.
Metz
encourages students to come see a game and get a feel for how the game is.
“It’s totally different than you’d think, it’s really a new experience.” The
frequency of Wheelchair Basketball games depends on the semester; however, both
teams usually play roughly 30 games a season, with many games coming from
tournaments. Because wheelchair basketball teams are few in number and spread
out, the teams play at a variety of different levels in some of their games in
order to play as much as possible and prepare themselves for the games against
other schools with established wheelchair athletics programs. For example, the
women’s team will play both men’s teams and club teams for as much play time as
they can get. Both teams will play at home on Saturday, December 3rd
and Saturday December 10th, and the games against other college
teams begin in the spring semester. Both teams’ schedules can be found on the
Wheelchair Athletics website at http://uads.weebly.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment