Several University students found out Wednesday that playing basketball while in a wheelchair is no easy task. In fact, the challenge was more than some expected.
“It’s really difficult to play basketball in a wheelchair,” freshman Kawezya Hutchinson said. “It’s amazing to see how talented [wheelchair-users] are.”
Players from two wheelchair basketball teams visited the University to give students the opportunity to experience for themselves what it is like to have a disability.
Members of the Eugene Express and Portland-based En Fuego teamed up with students to play several games of wheelchair basketball as part of Disability Awareness Week. After playing for 10 minutes, Hutchinson said she was impressed by the skill of the players.
While other Disability Awareness events have been educational, this event was designed to be a fun, hands-on experience, ASUO intern Nadia Hasan said.
“This is when you realize what it’s really like,” Hasan said.
En Fuego coach and player Ian Jaquiss said the purpose of the visit was to raise awareness about wheelchair sports, especially among students with disabilities.
“The main goal is to reach out to people with disabilities,” Jaquiss said. “Hopefully students with disabilities will come out and get interested.”
Wheelchairs were provided for students who participated in the games, which were held throughout the day in the Student Recreation Center. Eugene Express and En Fuego are part of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. The two teams play each other as well as other teams in the Northwest, En Fuego player Michael Morin said.
NWBA rules are the same as NCAA rules, with a few exceptions, Morin said. One difference is that a traveling violation is called if a player does not shoot, pass, or dribble after two pushes on the wheels.
Players are also assigned a point value depending on the extent of their disability, Morin said. Each team is only allowed a certain number of “points” on the floor at one time, he said. This way, one team doesn’t have an unfair advantage over the other, he said.
Brooke Lather, the ASUO campus organizer, said she enjoyed the first game she played so much that she came back to play again.
Although she took a couple of falls early on, Lather said that once she got the hang of playing in the wheelchair, it didn’t seem awkward.
“The wheelchair became just another piece of equipment,” she said.