Wheelchair Basketball: Becoming an Elite Player

Video Transcript

"Fitness is important and you know what? It feels good. You're stronger, it helps you transfer in your van, helps you live life, it just feels good to be strong, get the adrenaline, the endorphin's going. That's one of the advantages of wheelchair basketball, is fitness. Depending on who you are, depending on your life and the time you have, your job and your marriage, or whatever, push-ups, swimming, your diet, everything is extremely important. There have been times, over my thirty year career, when I've went to the gym everyday, every morning. There have been times when the best I can do is get there twice a week. Our wheelchair Jazz, our basketball team locally, we practice twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday nights. That keeps you in shape and it's pretty good but it may not be completely adequate for an elite level. When I'm on paralympic teams, we're going to training camps all summer long, we meet in locations for weekends. Every athlete was expected to train and do drills and take a hundred shots a day or whatever and turn those into the coach, depending on the team. It's no different than if you're playing church basketball, there's a different level of fitness and commitment, than if you're playing college basketball. In wheelchair basketball, we have elite teams, we have division one, we have division two, we have division three, there's juniors, there's college, there's womens. Again, if you're going to be an elite wheelchair basketball player at, possibly, a paralympic level, it takes a great deal of commitment."