Wheelchair basketball is hard — on top of simply maneuvering the wheelchair, you have to remember to dribble every two pushes, you’re getting blocked by other players, wheelchairs crash into each other. Then comes the shooting — it’s hard to shoot from a standstill, so you have to make sure you’re rolling when you try to take your shot. It’s hard.

And many members of the Wellman community learned that firsthand on Saturday, March 26 at the Adaptive Sports on the Court 3-on-3 Wheelchair Basketball Fundraiser, put on by Adaptive Sports Iowa and the Iowa Grizzlies wheelchair basketball team.

Almost all of the players on the Grizzlies were serving as referees, which meant the players were community members, not used to using a wheelchair.

“Controlling your chair is the hardest part. I’ve never done it before, do I don’t really understand how it works,” said Dylan Thomas, a Mid-Prairie basketball player. “This is like a completely different sport. All your angles are off. Layups are hard. Longer shots are hard. Every shot is harder.”

Raising awareness for adaptive sports was an important part of the fundraiser.

“That’s pretty much why we do it, so people can get an idea of what it’s like,” said Dixie Conrad, grandmother of Jayden Stafford of Wellman, who plays for the Iowa Grizzlies. “This is a small community and many people here had never seen wheelchair basketball before Jay started playing, didn’t even know it existed. This gives them an opportunity to get in the chairs and be a little more aware that there are opportunities out there for people with disabilities.” 

Koda Beland, a Grizzlies player, said he loves spreading awareness about wheelchair basketball because it gives other kids of disabilities hope that they can play a sport, too.

“I never thought I could do a sport,” he said. “It’s important to raise awareness because a lot of people who come in, the kids have no idea that they, too, can play a sport. We sometimes have young kids, like six years old, come in because their parents want them to know that there is something out there for them.”

The opportunities for athletes with disabilities are wide: A.J. Fitzpatrick, a Grizzlies player, just earned a scholarship to play wheelchair basketball in college at Wisconsin Whitewater.

“I never thought that I’d be able to get an athletic scholarship,” Fitzpatrick said. “But over the summer, Coach Derek and I went to the gym and worked really hard, working on my game so that I could get the chance to go to college. It’s paid off.”

Hannah Lundeen, Director of Adaptive Sports Iowa, played in the tournament on a team with her two interns, Cassidy Goodspeed and Karlie Busch. Lundeen said playing even just a few games of wheelchair basketball makes people think about day-to-day wheelchair users more, and realize how important it is for the world to be accessible for wheelchair users.

“It makes you think differently about accessibility,” she said. “As you’re walking around day to day, you start to notice more things, like ‘Oh, somebody in a wheelchair would not be able to go into that store,’ or ‘Somebody in a wheelchair would not be able to maneuver this street very well because it’s super uneven,’ and things like that. It gives you a new appreciation for people who are in wheelchairs.”

Adaptive Sports Iowa provides wheelchairs and programing for people with disabilities, including many players on the Iowa Grizzlies. While the organization has been focused in Central Iowa, Adaptive Sports Iowa is now pushing into the Eastern part of the state — Saturday’s tournament was their first fundraiser in Eastern Iowa.

“It’s interesting too, in the adaptive sports realm, being able to provide more opportunities for people who use wheelchairs,” Lundeen said. “There are so many things in their day-to-day life that they’re told they can’t do. And then we say, ‘Yes, you can do this. You’re going to come out here and play wheelchair basketball and you’re going to check it out and have a blast.’ It’s so cool to be able to provide that.”