Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 1, 1994 TAG: 9411140025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEN DAVIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
He covers the length of the court in less than seven seconds, powering his way into the lane and under the basket for an easy two-pointer.
It was a difficult shot that looked effortless. So effortless, in fact, it's easy to forget he did it all from a wheelchair.
"We all work at this pretty hard," Richardson said. "I'm no different."
Richardson plays for the Star City Saints, a Roanoke-based wheelchair basketball team that promotes the abilities, rather than the disabilities, of its players.
The Saints, who insist their angelic name does not necessarily reflect their behavior, have been coming to this hot and muggy gymnasium nearly every Thursday night for more than 20 years, reserving whatever time is needed to improve their game.
They usually practice for at least two hours, combining a nonstop routine of drills, practice games and strategy-formation.
"We play hard, and we practice hard," Richardson said. "We never quit. We might be losing by 40 points, but we keep going until the last minute."
The effort has been worth it. The Saints have found international success in an expensive sport that receives little fan attention, leaving the team short on participants.
"The guys we do have really stick together," Richardson said of the Saints' current roster - a tough, eclectic bunch that includes:
Richardson - a team spokesman and post office employee who was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident eight years ago.
Vernard Keeling - a 45-year-old Vietnam veteran who lost a portion of both legs to an enemy land mine. In addition to working and playing basketball, Keeling cares for his three children and his father, who has Alzheimer's disease.
Billy Myers - a 50-year-old in a 30-year-old's body who once held weightlifting records in both national and Pan-American competition. Myers was also paralyzed in a motorcycle accident.
Steve Norris - a 34-year-old Central Fidelity employee who severely injured his knees playing football.
Cort Thomas - the 32-year-old star player and acting head coach who severely injured his ankle, also by playing football. Thomas ranks third in scoring in the Saints' conference, averaging more than 17 points per game.
Brian Sisson - a 21-year-old former baseball and basketball standout at Shawsville High School who was paralyzed four years ago in a hunting accident.
Bruce Hankins - a 37-year-old former nationally ranked weightlifter who was born with spina bifida. Hankins also serves as a team spokesman.
Off the court, the Saints are soft-spoken and humble, suppressing the on-court confidence and aggressiveness gained through years of competition.
Their upper bodies are broad and strong, with hands that bear the bruises and blisters of working the 24-inch wheels and crashing into the chairs of other players.
"These are our brakes," Thomas said, proudly displaying the deep, open blisters and calluses that cover his palms. "Just like brake shoes, they're going to wear down over time."
There are alternatives, however.
"Oh yeah, you can use gloves," Richardson said with a laugh. "If you want people to call you a wimp."
Their wheelchairs are made for basketball.
Lighter, faster and more expensive than the wheelchairs the men use in their daily activities, a competition wheelchair covers the court quickly, making a sound that is nearly as soft as the whisper of a paper airplane.
The $2,000 chairs weigh about 25 pounds - at least 25 pounds lighter than standard wheelchairs - and sit on a pair of angled wheels with covered spokes that keep players from mangling their fingers in their opponents' wheels.
"That doesn't mean you don't lose a knuckle now and then," Richardson said.
But injured knuckles are not on their minds this night - a cold October evening when most of Roanoke is at home watching Thursday-night sitcoms.
Tonight the Saints practice for Saturday's games - a two-game set against the powerhouse Ambassadors from Washington, D.C., who consistently prove to be one of the Saints' hardest foes.
"They're big and they're tough," Hankins said. "They're really, really tough."
Wheelchair basketball began in the overcrowded veterans' hospitals of World War II, places that saw many men returning from Europe or the South Pacific in wheelchairs.
In 1948, the Paralyzed Veterans of America foundation organized six teams that competed from hospital gymnasiums. That same year, the National Wheelchair Basketball Association expanded the sport to a larger and tougher field of competition.
The NWBA now governs 27 conferences and nearly 200 teams.
"People just don't realize how big wheelchair sports are," said Linda Conrads, director of Radford University's Disabled Student Services. "People also don't realize how talented you have to be to play wheelchair basketball."
Several members of the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center team from Fishersville realize it all too well. They lost to the Saints by more than 40 points in an exhibition game Oct.13 at Radford University.
"They have new players coming and going all the time," Richardson said, attempting to ease the agony of his opponents' defeat. "We've been together a long time."
The Saints have been in the Carolina Conference since 1992, when they broke from the Capital Conference in hopes of having a bigger schedule. They have struggled the past two years without the guidance of a full-time head coach.
The conference includes more than 10 teams, who come from as far south as Georgia and as far west as Tennessee.
Teams and conferences are governed according to NCAA rules, with a few differences.
Players are classified according to disability levels, ranging from Class I players, who must always use wheelchairs, to Class III players, such as amputees, who can sometimes walk without them. Fouls can be called on Class III players who use their legs to help shoot or block opponents' shots.
The class system notwithstanding, baskets are still 10 feet high and three-pointers are still 19.9 feet away.
"This takes more skill than it takes to play able-bodied sports," said Sharon Myers, Billy Myers' wife and the Saints' fiery former head coach. "Anybody can run down the court."
Myers, who was stricken with polio when she was 3, brought wheelchair basketball to the Roanoke Valley in 1973. She gave up coaching the Saints three years ago because she wanted time to pursue other interests. In 25 years of playing in wheelchair sports, she has earned more than 125 gold medals in national and international competition and was inducted into the U.S. Wheelchair Sports Hall of Fame in 1982.
"I haven't missed anything being disabled," she said. "Our sports are just as important as they are for able-bodied people."
Like the NCAA, Myers said each year the NWBA holds a national competition, which narrows a group of 64 teams down to a Final Four competition and subsequent national champion.
Talented teams that are not in the national competition are invited to a number of invitational tournaments held around the world.
The invitationals are the Saints' specialty.
The Saints have played in more than 200 national and international tournaments the last 20 years, placing in about 150 of them. In 1991, they won the Spitfire Challenge tournament championship in Toronto, beating more than 40 teams from 14 different countries.
But the success hasn't come easily.
"We keep practicing until tempers get hot," Hankins joked. "It takes a lot of practice - especially when you're playing teams like Washington."
Thursday night's practice is a good one.
The Saints move with practiced grace under Thomas' guidance, making the slick plays and blind passes that come from years of playing and practicing together.
There are a number of crashes, with players tumbling out of their chairs and onto the floor. All part of the game.
"I once did a complete backflip at a camp in Minnesota," Richardson recalled during a break. "I thought I was going to be a quadriplegic instead of a paraplegic after that."
There are few breaks from practice, but even fewer words of conversation. Called plays, motivational cheers and occasional expletives are the only sounds that echo off the gym walls.
The Saints don't have to talk much. The men have played together long enough to know what each other is thinking.
Tonight, they're thinking about playing Washington.
The Ambassadors, one of the top teams in the Capital Conference, are a new team combined from three former Washington-area teams: The Baltimore Ravens, the Baltimore Wheelchair Athletic Club and the Washington Warriors.
Many metropolitan-area teams like the Ambassadors are sponsored by corporations and rehabilitative hospitals, which help pay the hundreds of dollars it takes to enter tournaments and the thousands of dollars it takes to pay for the competition chairs.
The Saints have to pay for most of their fees and equipment themselves, such as the $500 in local and national dues that are charged just to be registered with the NWBA.
"That money is not even to play any ball," Hankins said. "That's just to have your name on a dotted line."
Additionally, metropolitan teams typically have many players to choose from, and usually have at least twice the number of players as the Saints.
"We don't discourage anybody, as long as they have a strong desire to play," Richardson said. "They can come midseason, the end of the season, it doesn't matter. We always need players."
The last time the two teams met, Washington beat the Saints by nearly 30 points.
Game day.
About a dozen fans, all family and friends of players, trickled into the armory gymnasium to watch the game.
"We're going to get killed," Sharon Myers said, laughing, when she rolled up the ramp into the gym.
The Ambassadors, who wear the Washington Redskins' maroon and gold, had the Saints outnumbered and outsized, with several players topping 250 pounds.
"I'm not going to say we're the top team in the conference yet," said Ambassador Gordon Moye with a confident smile. "But we will be."
The Ambassadors beat the Saints by nine points the first game. Seven points the second.
Despite the intimidating size and talent of the opposition, "They're just a great group of guys," said Sharon Myers. ``They give you more than 100 percent and play until their arms are about to fall off."
by CNB