DHFT student Daniel Clarke has been a paraplegic sense the age of 15, injured in a playground accident in August of 1991 fracturing his back at his T3. Daniel moved to Pierce County in 1992 with his family from Hawaii. With in six months he hooked up with his friend Dave Stump and began playing wheelchair basketball. Daniel became part of the Tacoma Titans a recreation and competitive wheelchair basketball team.
Daniel hopes to complete his DHFT certification and his AA here at Pierce then transfer to a university to get his Physical/Occupational therapist degree specializing in disability rehab. Daniel has a dream of opening his on fitness rehab facility catering to wheelchair bound athletes.
What is wheelchair basketball? Well it played pretty much the same way as regular basketball. They play by NCAA rules, ten foot hoops, five man or three man teams, five personal fouls. Now let’s look at the differences two pushes and then a dribble, ten teams’ fouls. Each athletes has a classification from 1 – 4 with 1 being the most limited in function and a 4 having some permanent disability such as a bad knee and being unable run. Each team can only have 11 classification points or less on the court at a time, if you hit someone with a chair it can be called a chair foul much like a blocking or offensive charging foul it counts towards your personal fouls.
Wheelchair basketball is played on a colligate level at a number of schools, here just a few U of IL, U of A and ASU. Daniel is looking at to possibilities at playing collegiate level basketball at one of these two schools U of A or U of IL.
On November 12th & 13th the Adaptive recreation program out of Metro Parks Tacoma hosted the 2nd annual Tacoma Fall Classics wheelchair basketball tournament at Mt. Tahoma High School. This tournament has a National Wheelchair Basketball Association Division III backing but was open to all teams. Teams from Portland, Seattle and British Columbia were in attendance.
The Tacoma Titans are sponsored by Metro Parks Tacoma, with national affiliation of NWBA Para-Olympic organization. The Titans play an average of 7 tournaments year. On October they traveled up to Canada to play in a tournament. The Canadian team had member of their Para Olympic team playing.
To learn more about Adaptive Recreation contact Adaptive Recreation MPT. 253-591-531 or email [email protected]. Better yet come to the Hec and meet Daniel yourself he always has a chair to offer, but careful though he has a wicked outside shot.
