The year that was, that is, that will be
CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - In a year that included the Rio Paralympic Games, there was so much more than that in the world of wheelchair basketball. So, in this first week of 2017, let's take a look back at 2016.
The year started out rough with the loss of Jerry Tonello, a fixture in the success of Canada's men's team for two decades, to a brain tumor at the age of 59. The heart of wheelchair basketball was still aching from the passing of NWBA founder Dr. Tim Nugent a couple months earlier.
In February I was disappointed to watch as the NBA All Star week in Toronto would not have, for the first time since 1998, the NBA/NWBA All Star Wheelchair Basketball Classic, a game that brought together the best players from NBA affiliated wheelchair teams in the U.S. and Canada.
Then, by coincidence or by fate - I'm good either way - I was led by a message on Facebook to an article written by the mother of a young wheelchair basketball player. The title made a big claim:
"Wheelchair basketball seriously changed my son’s life." - Zimra Vigoda
Her then 10-year-old son had refused to shake hands with the other team after yet another loss on the day and his coach, former USA Parlympian Trooper Johnson, now an assistant coach with the USA women, and coach of the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP) Junior Road Warriors took issue with it.
The importance of sport and the influence of coaches like BORP Jr. Road Warriors Trooper Johnson on a young player's life cannot be overstated.
"Come here," he said to my 10-year-old son, Vigoda wrote. His tone was calm but firm. "If I ever see behavior like that again, you’ve ended your wheelchair basketball career, and this will have been your last tournament."
It wasn't. By coincidence, I saw a post on the IWBF European Development Commission's Facebook page today that featured a photo of Israel's U22 men's team. In the picture was that kid, Amit Zigoda, who had moved with his family from the Bay Area to Israel. The game was bigger than his anger and set him on a better path. That kind of win cannot be overstated.
Perhaps one day, he'll make it to the Paralympic Games. As of last February, the most successful current U.S. Paralympic team was the sledge hockey squad that had taken gold in Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014. Two players on that roster were also NWBA basketball players. Rico Roman plays for the San Antonio Parasport Spurs and Kevin McKee's team was Chicago's RIC Hornets.
The hockey team's head coach Jeff Sauer, attributed their success to chemistry and the USA men's and women's basketball teams had that in excess once Rio rolled around.
For the first time ever, the USA swept all four Olympic and Paralympic basketball gold medals. For the women, it equaled them with the hockey team for three gold medals out of four Paralympics in the 2000's. For the American men, it was the long awaited and highly coveted first gold medal since 1988 in Seoul.
The USA men won gold for the first time since 1988 at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. Photo by Steve Goldberg/SCS Media
On the club side of competition, stories included the consistency of the Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks winning the Championship Division title for the 14th time in the past 20 seasons after defeating the Milwaukee Wheelchair Bucks at the 68th Annual NWBA National Wheelchair Basketball Tournament.
Inconsistent was seeing German side RSV Lahn Dill, the FC Bayern of the Rollstuhlbasketball-Bundesliga, go without a major trophy for the first time in recent memory, losing to Spain's CD Ilunion after the two met for the second straight year in the final of the IWBF European Champions Cup.
After finishing second in 2014 and 2015, the Madrid team are European champions for the second time in team history. Lahn Dill would also miss out domestically, losing the league and cup titles to RSB Thuringia Bulls.
RSV Lahn Dill (blue) and CD Ilunion (yellow) met for the second straight year in the final of the IWBF European Champions Cup with the Madrid team are champions for the second time in team history. Photo courtesy of RSV Lahn-Dill
Unfortunately, I also had to write about Turkish thugs who chose the street outside the Champions Cup venue in Zwickau as their place for violence. The 5th/6th place game between Galatasaray and Besiktas was called off as a result.
In better news, a record 16 teams vied for the British Universities Wheelchair Basketball Championships with the University of Worcester finishing on top of the field. Across the pond, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater men won a third straight trophy at the 39th NWBA Intercollegiate Division Championships while the University of Texas-Arlington (UTA) claimed the school's first women's title after only three years in existence and just their second season eligible.
Morgan Wood holds the first-ever national championship trophy for the University of Texas-Arlington women's team.With USA Paralympians Rose Hollermann and Abbie Dunkin back, they are favorites for 2017 as well. Photo courtesy of Edinboro University/Daniel Graham
I was also able to share the debut of The Rebound - A wheelchair basketball story at the Miami International Film Festival, which was appropriate because the documentary directed by Shaina Allen and produced by Mike Esposito gave an inside look at the players of the Miami Heat Wheels who kindly won the NWBA Division 3 title in 2015 to give the film a better ending.
"Playing in an African Championship was a dream. Going to the Games was bigger." - Algeria women's assistant coach Mohammed Tahar Kisrane
One of my favorite things to write about in a year when the world seemed to be growing farther apart was how the IWBF worked with the Algerian national women's team to ensure that religious beliefs and the game could work together.
The Algerian delegation requested that their players be allowed to wear hijab, the traditional Muslim head cover and scarf worn in public or in the presence of non-family member males. While technically against the rules governing head gear, the IWBF's only real concerns were player safety and integrity of the game. So Maureen Orchard, the secretary general, worked with Algeria to find a solution that worked for all and they did.
Algeria's Samiha Abdelali drives to the hoop against China at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Photo by Steve Goldberg/SCS Media
Let's close on that game winner mentioned in the top photo. At the end of December, Rio 2016 organizers reported that wheelchair basketball was the most attended sport at the Paralympic Games last September.
An impressive 85% of available basketball tickets were sold, outrunning athletics 354,734 to 319,564, as Rio finished second only to London 2012 in Paralympic attendance with over two million total tickets bought.
"IWBF are very pleased to see that the wheelchair basketball competition at the Paralympic Games was so well received. The ticket sales are impressive. During the Games you could always see that the wheelchair basketball was already very popular in Brazil and the audience consistently knowledgeable and enthusiastic." - Ulf Mehrens, IWBF President
Even more important than that is that 2017 will see the IWBF continue to promote the sport around the world, working with organizations such as the International Committee for the Red Cross to grow opportunities to play and compete for men, women and children with a disability in areas such as India and Afghanistan, Africa and Asia. The IWBF's burgeoning relationship with FIBA will provide benefits in this outreach.
It used to be said that the sun never set on the British Empire. The new truth is that it never sets on basketball. There is no off season. Basketball, as FIBA says, is everywhere. And always. On to 2017...
Steve Goldberg
FIBA
FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.
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