Every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., members of Western Washington University’s Adaptive Sports Club meet up at the Wade King Recreation Center to play wheelchair basketball.
Most are students or recent graduates, but the club started taking members outside of the university after receiving an email from the father of a local 12-year-old asking if his son could join the team. Previously, Michael Phillips would drive more than an hour every weekend so his son, Graham Connelly, could play wheelchair basketball at one of the nearest offering locations in Seattle or Langley, British Columbia.
Angela Romeo, president of the Adaptive Sports Club, told Phillips she would make it happen. Since January, Connelly has been a part of the team at Western.
In addition to Connelly, the duo of Bob Gammons-Reese and his son, Jude, joined the wheelchair basketball team in May.
“Everyone deserves to play. Fundamentally, as we grow and as adults, play is just an important part of who we are as humans,” Romeo said. “Everyone deserves opportunities to play, whether that be through adaptive sports or not. Adaptive sports give people opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Aside from the bigger-picture impact adaptive sports can have on people, wheelchair basketball is an opportunity to provide individuals with physical benefits.
“It’s a really good workout, both in terms of cardio and upper body strength. Obviously, [with] standing basketball, you’re getting cardio and you’re running around. But I feel like [with] wheel ball, you’re getting cardio and you’re using your upper body strength,” team member Glory Busic said.
While the club only offers wheelchair basketball for now, Romeo plans to expand to other adaptive sports. Having had a brief stint with swimming in the past, the club didn’t have enough officers to keep it going. But, after electing several new faces to leadership positions, Romeo is positive they will begin offering new sports this year.
The club was originally established in 2018 after former Western student Zak Meyer decided he wanted to make the Rec Center more accessible for people with disabilities.
Part of that included creating a wheelchair basketball team, and he reached out to another former student, Maggie Mittelstaedt, for help. After she got on board, the process took about a year before it was finalized.
Mittelstaedt graduated in 2021 but has high hopes for the club and its potential to grow as a community in Bellingham.
“I’d love, eventually, for disabled students to pick Western because of the programs that are offered, because of the clubs that are offered, because of the community that would be there for them,” Mittelstaedt said. “That would be amazing.”
Though the formation of the team was to give people with disabilities an opportunity to be active, the club also encourages able-bodied people to join. They’ve had players from Western’s basketball team come out and practice with them and hope that more able-bodied people decide to do the same.
“Much like any other form of diversity or other group, it’s important to interact with people different than you so that you can gain a better sense of, ‘Oh, that’s right. That’s a whole human person the same way I’m a whole human person.’ Because I think that, no matter how hard we try intellectually, if you’re not getting those experiences, it’s not going to sink into your brain,” player Avery Nykvist said.
Romeo described an exercise that covers this idea, called disability simulation. It can go two different ways, she explained.
“Let’s say you’re at a disability symposium and someone hands you a blindfold and a red-and-white cane and says, ‘Navigate this obstacle course.’ Well, you’re screwed. And you’re going to walk away and go ‘It would be so hard and awful to be blind.’
“Or you get in a wheelchair, and you play basketball and you see what disabled people can do,” Romeo added. “You walk away and you say, ‘Wow, disabled people can get a lot done and achieve a lot and be successful in a lot of things.’ And that’s going to shape how you interact with disabled people in the future.”
Playing wheelchair basketball as an able-bodied man
While working on a story about the Adaptive Sports Club at Western Washington University, I was invited to participate in one of the club’s wheelchair basketball practices.
I had never sat in a wheelchair before, so when I got in and started to roll around the court, I felt almost completely immobile. Turning was a challenge, and I couldn’t move quickly. The team’s captain, Angela Romeo, and another team member, Glory Busic, gave me some tips, and after a little practice of doing laps around the court, I started to get the hang of it.
We started practice with some passing and movement drills, which went a long way in getting me more comfortable in the chair. It was once the scrimmage started, however, that the fun really began. Everyone seemed to have a smile on their face throughout the entire game, and even the players sitting on the sideline were cheering and cracking jokes.
I play basketball nearly every day, and what I got out of wheelchair basketball was much of the same. The competition, the comradery, the exercise — it was all there. And while there are several disparate intricacies between the two, the principles of the sport remain the same whether in a chair or on foot.
I say all this to emphasize that although I had a fantastic time playing the sport itself, it was the individuals who taught, encouraged and played with me that made it such a favorable experience. That’s what sports are all about.
