Rules of Wheelchair Basketball.

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 evolved as well. The rules were pretty simple back then. For every two pushes you have to dribble the ball at least one time. If you don’t that’s called traveling. In the NWBA we follow the same exact rules as the NCAA. Just think about the wheelchair being part of your body. For example if you have the ball and slam into another opponents chair which would be called a charge just like in regular basketball. Now days NWBA players have to follow many rules about what we can wear in a game, classifications, what we can and can’t do off the court, and so on. Being in the NWBA can be hard because we have a lot of people looking up to us and don’t want to make the organization look bad.    

Sometimes I wonder what the game of Wheelchair Basketball will look like in the next hundred years. There has been a lot of changes to the game to make it better. Only time will tell. Before I end this blog I got a question for you. Do you guys think you can play wheelchair basketball?