my life as a disabled athlete

I get a lot of questions thrown at me. How do you play basketball with only one arm? Did you win the game? How’s your team doing? There was one question that someone asked me the other day that threw me off. What’s the endgame? What do you want to accomplish by playing basketball. At first it sounded like a simple question, but then I thought about it and figured out it’s a really deep question. I had to think about it really hard. At first I was going to say win a championship, but I didn’t.         When I decide to hang up my jersey I don’t want to be known as the guy who won a championship. When I die I want people to talk about what kind of player I was.. I think the biggest thing you can earn from someone is respect. I want to earn the respect of my coaches, teammates, opponents, family, friends, and my fans. When it’s all said and done at your funeral people won’t talk about all the buckets you scored or how many people you stuffed on defense. They...

In everything we do we want to be the best. We want to be the best at work, school, parenting, and being a great friend. What if you want to become a great wheelchair basketball player? What does it take to win a championship? If you master these skills your name will be forever known in the hall of fame (yes there is a hall of fame for the NWBA).    Wheelchair basketball is a tough sport. Many try and fail. The first step to becoming a great player in any sport is to fix your mind set. A lot of people say they want to be the best, but later settle to be average. If you want to be the best you have got to work hard everyday for it, not go a couple weeks and quit. If you want to be the best, you have to work like the best. That means getting up early, putting the work in the weight room, and go 110% in practice no matter how boring or hard some days may seem.        Everyone wants to score a basket and be the hero, but to be a good wheelchair ...

My topic on these past blogs have been about my life on playing wheelchair basketball. I forgot to really explain what wheelchair basketball was though. I just expected you to google it or something, but I think it will be easier if I explained.      Wheelchair basketball was founded in 1946 after World War 2. It was originally created for rehabilitation for the wounded veterans coming back home. In 1948 the NWBA (National Wheelchair Basketball Associate) was created by the now hall of famer Tim Nugent. This eventually lead to the creation of tParalympics. The game has changed over the course of time. At first the athletes played in hospital chairs and played against doctors. Now we play with sleek and fast basketball chairs that are specifically designed for you. In the beginning athletes only traveled around locally. Today we play nationwide or worldwide. Today there are more than 200 teams in the NWBA. Just like the chairs and the teams, the rules have evol...