Wheely hoops team seeking female players
Rob Stiles is on a recruitment drive, one that leads directly to the wheelchair basketball court at the B.C. Winter Games in Kamloops.
The head coach of the Prince George Lumberjacks plans to take a team of eight players to the eight-team tournament but has just five on his roster with the Games only two months away in February.
The B.C. Games wheelchair basketball tournament is open to athletes aged 13-23. The Lumberjacks are made up of 12- to 19-yearolds and they have their quota of male players but are short of females. Two of the girls who are regulars in the lineup will be away on student exchanges and won’t be available to make the trip to Kamloops for the biennial multi-sport gathering, Feb. 22-25, 2018.
Stiles is especially encouraging girls who have played the standup game to give wheelchair basketball a try. A lot of the shooting and dribbling skills required are common to both types of basketball and he says playing the game while in a sit-down position is a great form of cross-training for aspiring players in the standup game.
“There is a lot of crossover, so if you are already a basketball athlete you could certainly be at a level that could cope with the Games,” said Stiles. “We have a couple of months and you could easily get the chair skills to be at a level in a month of practice and if you have some basketball skills you could do quite well.
“A lot of the women’s national team are actually standup athletes who picked up injuries. It’s something to fall back on. People play wheelchair basketball while they’re injured and then they’ll go back to standup afterwards.”
Elisha Williams, now 39, a former high school basketball star at Duchess Park secondary school in the late-1990s, joined the national wheelchair basketball team and played in two Paralympics for Canada, winning silver medals in 2007 and 2011. She got into wheelchair basketball when she developed knee problems which cut short her college basketball career.
The sport is open to able-bodied as well as disabled players and virtually every wheelchair team has a mix of each. Each player is assigned a number based on each individual’s level of disability which ranges from 1.0-4.5 points. The most disabled players are rated 1.0, while those who are not disabled at all are rated at 4.5.
The Games format requires each team to have four players on the court at any one time.
Stiles says the more reckless nature of males leads to accidents and more athletes suffering debilitating injuries which put them permanently in wheelchairs. That usually gives wheelchair teams more male players to choose from.
“We’re allowed to take eight players and we have five who are pretty much shoo-ins, so we have three spots,” said Stiles. “Ideally we would fill those with physically-disabled people but it’s very hard to find them if they’re not already coming out. We have two disabled guys and three able-bodied guys and we’re always open to anybody with a physical disability at any time.
“It’s a mixed sport and it’s nice to have a group that’s mixed. It’s just a different atmosphere. We could easily fill the roster with just guys but it’s nice to have a bit of variety.”
The Lumberjacks team includes Joel Ewert, 17, part of the B.C. provincial team, who played for B.C. in the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George. Josh Holton, 16, is the Lumberjacks’ other disabled player. Also on the team are Riley Stiles, 14, and Zachary Maurice, 14.
The team meets for practices on Mondays from 8-10 p.m. at the Northern Sport Centre. The practice schedule will resume on the UBC campus in January.
For more information contact Stiles at 250613-5187 or on email at pgwheelchairbball@ gmail.com.