LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Inside the gymnasium of Thomas Jefferson Middle School, student athletes on Jefferson County Public School’s adaptive sports team are busy getting a final practice in ahead of their first wheelchair basketball tournament. The team is called Louisville Lightning.
Coach Amy Verst leads the prep team. Made up of younger kids, boys and girls play on the same team in wheelchair basketball. It’s one sport, along with archery, boccia ball, and track and field, that JCPS students can participate in.
It’s designed for children with physical disabilities.
“We started last year just teaching them how to move the chair, so to see now that we’ve introduced a ball and we’re moving up and down the court, it’s just yes, it’s really exciting. It is the best job ever,” Verst said in between practices.
Verst is an accomplished athlete who competed for Team USA in the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
“I started playing wheelchair basketball in 1997, so I have a neuromuscular disease. So I walk most of the time, but I can’t run and turn my head or else the whole world tilts,” Verst explained.
Fellow Paralympian Dennis Ogbe also played wheelchair basketball on the global stage. Originally from Nigeria, Ogbe contracted Pollio at three. The disease left him paralyzed from the waist down. But a love for sports and lots of hard work led him to regain enough strength to walk again, and compete in the Paralympics along with several other competitions. Today he coaches the adaptive sports program’s track and field team.
“Having this opportunity to talk to kids, young kids like this, we have to pass that torch on. And as you can see, even in basketball going on right now there’s a lot of abilities, even in their disability,” Ogbe said.
Together, this group of coaches leans on their own life experience of living with a disability to teach skills beyond dribbling a ball or shooting a bow and arrow. It shows kids that no matter what, they can accomplish anything they set their mind to.
“If you allow the kids to be who he or she wants to be, of course they’ll stumble here and there, but they can figure it out and play any kind of sports,” Ogbe said. “And when I say any kind of sports, I mean it.”
JCPS’ adaptive sports program currently serves between 40 and 60 students of all ages. Students do not have to be wheelchair users, and it costs nothing to take part.
“Winning is important, but we’re going to win not just by score, you know, we’re going to win when these kids make relationships and these kids feel supported,” Verst said.
This year, Louisville Lightning is officially registered with the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, and traveled to its first basketball tournament in Cincinnati in October. Verst says experiences like this are invaluable for kids, as it gives them a chance to connect and make friends with kids who share the same life experiences they do.
In the future, Louisville Lightning plans to add swimming, wheelchair tennis, seated volleyball and cheer/dance to their program.