THE RECORD
Sunday November 4, 2007
Driving to the hoop on 2 wheels
What disabilities? Let’s play some D!
By Carolyn Salazar
STAFF WRITER
The New York Knicks player dribbled the ball until he was close enough, and in one smooth move took his shot. The ball gently slipped into the basket.
Players and fans roared.
But this was not your typical game of hoops, and Peter Schuyler is not on the
National Basketball Association’s Knick’s.
Schuyler uses a wheelchair, and he had to maneuver past several other wheelchair players trying to block his path in the Hackensack Middle School Gymnasium.
“Come on”! people shouted from the sidelines.
What players in the 13th annual Wheelchair Basketball Tournament lacked in mobility they made up for in passion and enthusiasm. Seven teams from the Northeast – including one from Boston – competed for the regional basketball title during the tournament, which started Friday and
ends today.
The top teams, all members of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, will move on to national tournaments.
On Saturday the court was full of energy and sweat – and revved-up players fighting for the prestigious title. The squeaks of wheelchairs filled the gymnasium, as the players grunted, rammed each other and yelled for teammates to throw them the ball.
Wheelchair basketball follows National Collegiate Athletic Association rules with some modifications. The wheelchairs must be a certain height and specification, and players must have a certain level of paralysis.
Despite the hard play, there was more camaraderie then bitter rivalry Saturday. The players want to win, but they are also looking for a good time.
“For those two hours, all my life’s problems, all my life’s situations, don’t matter,” said Jim Jeffreys, 40, of Paterson, who plays for the New Jersey Nets wheelchair basketball team.
“I’m just having fun.”
Jeffreys, who has been playing wheelchair basketball for three decades, suffers from phocomelia, a disorder in which he was born with no legs. He said the competitions and weekly practices have introduced him to friends he otherwise would never have met.
“We come from all walks of life,” he said. “We’re like one big fraternity. We all know each other. We all get along.”
Dylan Levine, 15, a sophomore at Paramus High School who also plays for the Nets, eagerly waited for his team’s game. Levine suffers from a debilitating bone disease called fibrous dysplasia and has undergone more than 30 operations on his legs. But while he’s on the court, nothing else is on his mind but winning.
“His legs are constantly hurting him, but when he’s playing he forgets about the pain,” said his father, Dan Levine. “He’s out there doing what he loves to do.”
The tournament is in memory of Al Youakim, a Hillsdale resident known as a pioneer of organized wheelchair basketball. Youakim, who volunteered for the United Spinal Association for 61 years died in August.
He helped create wheelchair basketball after his brother suffered a spinal cord injury in combat in World War II.
