The field game next to the commemorative gymnasium is basketball, but it looks very much like the stamps while the students, the staff and the faculty of the University of Virginia are fighting for the ball while driving on the field in wheelchairs specially designed.
Welcome to “Roll with Jim” on Wednesday afternoon, an event sponsored by the Kinesiology Department of the UVA Education and Human School. The adaptive day of the sports field offered the university community a chance to try the wheelchair sports, alongside the president of the UVA, Jim Ryan.
In addition to basketball, rugby, pickleball, tennis and football, the event presented t-shirts and pizzas for participants-and Trevon Jenifer, a triple paRlympic gold medalist in wheelchair in wheelchair.
“I believe in the power of sport to enhance the normality of disability and the fact that para-sports are real sports and just as fun,” said Abby Fines, assistant professor of kinesiology who helped organize the event.
“People with disabilities cannot always participate in events like” Run With Jim “, and we wanted to offer an opportunity so that everyone can participate,” said fines. “These sports take so much skills, and if anything, they sometimes allow people who consider themselves non -athletic to have fun more.”
Many have done that exactly. On the sidelines, third-year students Autumn Bissett and Grace Bradecamp practiced basketball management and a wheelchair.
“It’s not something I’ve ever had the chance to try,” said Bradecamp. “And I’m not really an athletic person first, so I said to myself:” Ok, I’m going to try it. If I don’t like it, very well. If I do it, it’s cool. “”
Even these slightly more athletic athletics had fun. UVA’s wrestling coach Steve Garland did his best to follow Jenifer’s remarkable Break Downcourt.
“It was really difficult,” said Garland when other players were running in the game. “My shoulders kill me. I am terrible in basketball anyway, but trying to pull from the wheelchair was impossible for me. ”
Garland’s competitive spirit has left a brand. It was on his right where the skin dissipated when he pushed his chair from top to bottom on the ground.
“I did not know that you were not supposed to hold it as I was, so I cut my hand when I was pushing,” said Garland, watching Jenifer fly while chasing a loose ball. “Dude, this guy! He’s an athlete.”
On the tennis courts, the players were amused by their efforts to move the wheelchair and the fly at the same time.
“I played tennis in high school, so it was fun to try to learn sport in a new way,” said Mehki Rippey, a fourth year of engineering. “You do not realize how many mechanics enter it, to have to move to the chair while playing sports.”
“The use of the racket was already quite difficult,” said Zenkins, a fourth year student with a double major in education and politics. “I would like to start again, because I did not grow up by playing racket sports, and I am not good in tennis, so the use of the racket and the wheelchair was already too far.”
The person who has the most fun can, however, be a jenifer. The paralympic medalist has spent most of the event rushing on the field, passing, flying, applauding and scoring.
“I am happy to be able to share my knowledge and skills left here,” he said by taking a break next to his daughter Saraeya, 9, and his son Keiden, almost 6 years old. “We are human beings, and we are competitive by nature, and therefore to see everyone go out here and try to compete is great.”
Jenifer said he was happy that so many people have proven to try her sport and the others.