Ramon – What adaptive sports interest you?

I heard about this tournament in Chicago’s Navy Pier.  It was an adaptive basketball demonstration, I showed up with my family, and I saw all these guys doing these amazing things in their wheelchair, from a wheelchair.  And, I couldn’t see myself doing that, I wonder, you know, “We’re, I’m supposed to be fragile.”  People were falling, but they were coming right back up by themselves, they were shooting three points.  It was competitive because, you know, there was yelling, there was, like, competitive, you can feel that.  And, that’s when I realized that I was missing out, that I never realized that I could be doing that from my able-bodied days that, you know, we’re, like, competitive—we’re guys, we have to do this—and I saw it in these guys, but they were just using a wheelchair.  And then when they had a half time, or time out, they came back, they came towards their bench, and I was kind of there, and I was listening to the coach, and, “You guys keep doing this.”  So, they weren’t being treated as disabled folks, like, “Oh you guys should try, we’re going to get a hug later on.”  He was like, “You guys need to do this, and you, you, you, and you’re not trying.”  I go, “But they’re in wheelchairs, why are you yelling at them?—Right?”  And these guys turn around and won the game.  Right, and after they game, they’re high five.  And I go, “Wow, there’s team, there’s team in this community here, I wish I could be a part of this.”   And then they approached me—“So what’s going on, what’s up with you, when are you going to come play?  We practice such and such days over here.”— And I’m like, “No dude, I don’t do that, you know, I’m not like you, you know, I’m going to be ok.  I’m waiting for that cure, that pill, the potion, whatever.”— “Come on man, just, here, call this guy up, right now we’re, this is a demo, but we’re playing, this summer, so softball season.”  “Softball?  Chicago 16-inch softball?”—“Yeah”—“In a wheelchair?”  And I’m like, “these guys are nuts, I don’t know what they’re talking about.”  So, I went to the practice, and they took me in right away—“Go ahead, go to second.”—“Wait a second, what do you mean ‘go to second’?  What am I supposed to do on second?  I’m in a wheelchair, I can’t do this.”  I mean in a hospital chair, you know, I got my gloves, you know, I’m cool.  I go to second and they started hitting at me, and throwing, and I go, “Whoa, this can be done.”  And then from then on, it went to sled hockey.  So, my favorite sport, adaptive sport in the world, is sled hockey.  It’s something that I never thought I would be playing on the ice, and I got a great team, great folks; we’re the number one in the country today, 2010.