UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION

April 2002

Gloucester man helps team win national wheelchair rugby title
By DOM NICASTRO
from the Gloucester Daily Times

Times sports editor

The image is indelible for Karen Sarofeen: Her son, Rob, sitting in his wheelchair, smiling and holding the Division 2 United States Quad Rugby championship trophy.

It happened Sunday at the Metro State campus in Denver. Sarofeen's team, the Boston Pitbulls, won the Division 2 national title, its first in close to two decades of existence. Boston beat Sharp Edge of California, 38-32, in the final game.

Sarofeen is a 24-year-old Gloucester native who is paralyzed from the chest down with minimal use of his arms and hands. Since 1997, he has played wheelchair rugby, a sport designed more than two decades ago for people with quadriplegia, paralysis from the chest down.

Sunday, Karen snapped pictures of her son raising the championship trophy.

"It was very moving," said Karen. "I cried, and he cried. He had played on so many team sports teams, would make it to the championship but would always come up short. This was so rewarding."

Sarofeen, a West Gloucester man, grew up playing Cape Ann Youth hockey, Little League baseball with the Tigers and Cape Ann Pee-Wee football with the West Gloucester Chargers.

"Once they put me in that chair the first night, I pretty much fell in love with the sport," said Sarofeen. "I was an athlete before I got hurt, and I finally realized I could become an athlete again. I was missing that competition in life. And for once, being in a wheelchair, I'm not the minority."

Karen hasn't missed much of her son's life the last seven years. She'll be there in June when her son receives his undergraduate diploma from Northeastern University. She has travelled across the country to rugby tournaments, and she was there at Rob's first practice with the Pitbulls five years ago.

Karen was also in a hospital with her son on Jan. 20, 1995.

Swimming with friends

That night, Sarofeen and friends had been drinking. Sarofeen ran along the edge of the flood tide at Good Harbor Beach and dove in. As his body shot into the water, he cracked his head on a rock. The impact fractured the fifth vertebra in his spine and left him limp in the water, paralyzing 80 percent of his body.

Sarofeen was hospitalized for about five months in The New England Rehabilitation Hospital in Woburn and had therapy 10 hours per day. He had to defer enrollment to Northeastern because of medical complications.

Karen was unable to return to work as a computer operator at Addison Gilbert Hospital in order to care for Rob. His father, Rob Sr., a ramp service worker at United Airlines, and sister, Melissa, 26, also had to make sacrifices.

"To this day, I have never really asked my parents what went through their minds when they got that call that said I was being taken to the hospital," Sarofeen said.

Although he said he never had a drinking problem, Sarofeen said he's learned his lesson from that night in January.

"I spoke to my cousin Kiely's eighth-grade health class at O'Maley School," said Sarofeen. "I said no drugs or alcohol can make you feel as good as graduating high school or college or winning in a sport. Drinking, you'll forget about."

Adapting to a new life

The first two years, Sarofeen couldn't drive and could not attend college. His mother stayed with him at their Bray Street home. She had to get him out of bed, help him shower, go to the bathroom and put him to bed.

The simplest things, things he took for granted, were the most difficult, Sarofeen said.

"Just picture being extremely addicted to something, say chocolate, and one day you just can't have it anymore," said Sarofeen. "And, all the time, people are eating chocolate in front of you. You know how much fun it would be to go up O'Maley rink and strap on my skates and take a few rips around the rink? It frustrates me when people say things like they don't want to get out of bed."

Sarofeen may not have been able to do most of the things he did before Jan. 20, 1995, but he could do one thing he dreamed of: Go to college at Northeastern University in Boston.

Sarofeen has been a dean's list student every semester of his five years while living at Northeastern. He's only had one 'C' for grades: "Marine biology," Sarofeen said. "Go figure, a Gloucester kid gets a 'C' in a class about the ocean."

Sarofeen, a National Honor Society member, has three classes remaining until he graduates in June at the FleetCenter. He'll earn a bachelor of science in business administration with a dual concentration in finance and marketing.

He's had internships at Gillette and State Street Bank working with mutual funds and corporate financing.

Off to college

Northeastern marked the first time Sarofeen would be away from his mom since the accident. State aid and financial support from the community and his family enabled him to purchase a more than $40,000 van, which he still drives. All of its controls, including gas and brakes, are operated by his hands.

Sarofeen lived alone in an upperclassmen dorm his freshman year and had to pay a personal care attendant to lift him out of bed in the morning and put him to bed at night.

He also had to learn how to cook on his own: "I couldn't cook much. I ate microwave food or food from the George Foreman grill all the time," Sarofeen said.

Classes needed to be wheelchair accessible, and preferably close to his dormitory. "It isn't fun wheeling 20 minutes across campus," he said. Sarofeen would find maintenance men a week before classes began to help make room in classrooms for his wheelchair.

Keeping the bond with mom

Through college, Karen was never truly away from her son. She never returned to Addison Gilbert after the accident and now works part-time at Marshall's Farm Stand in West Gloucester. It's owned by her two brothers, Bill and Bob.

She and her husband can't take vacations together "because at least one of us has to be here for Rob." This is the case when her son's personal care attendants don't show at Northeastern in the morning.

"I've had many mornings driving through Boston after a call from Rob," Karen said. "That was probably the biggest obstacle for him in college. You have to hope his personal care attendants are dependable. If they don't show up, he's stuck in bed for the day. He missed several classes because of it."

Karen said her son hardly showed his frustration while at Northeastern.

"We speak every day after he comes back from class," Karen said. "He has always been excited about finishing his dream of going to Northeastern. It's just another part of what he could do for himself."

Karen said Rob "cherishes anything he can do on his own. He has a power wheelchair, and he never uses it. It's a coat rack downstairs in our house. He'd rather push himself. Riding in a power wheelchair is one more thing that makes him look disabled."

Instead, Sarofeen wheels himself around campus. A specially coated rim on his wheel is positioned so he can place his hands and move the wheels with rapid mini-circles.

Karen said Northeastern's disability center had never heard of her son until four and a half years into his college tenure because he never used it.

"They thought he withdrew from school," she said.

Some students in wheelchairs depend on note-takers and do not attend class. Sarofeen attends class and takes his own notes.

What motivates Sarofeen?

"My family," he said. "Knowing how much they've helped me through this keeps pushing me forward. They've pushed me so much by not letting me get down. It's never gotten to the point where I wanted to give up, it was more frustration of things I couldn't do."

Social life

At Northeastern, Sarofeen met his girlfriend, Louise Fullerton of Sanford, Maine. She majors in physical therapy. Fullerton was at Sarofeen's recent practice at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Building 23, in Brockton. She rubbed his shoulders and handed him his water bottle during breaks.

Who rubs his shoulders when she's not there?

"No one ... that she knows she about," Sarofeen said as he chuckled and looked around his shoulder at his girlfriend. (Sarofeen won the Gloucester High School Class of '95 most flirtatious superlative).

"He was always on the phone with girls," Karen remembered.

Fullerton was a resident assistant at Sarofeen's dormitory, and the two have been dating since last November.

"He asked me if he could borrow a stapler, and that's how we first started talking," Fullerton recalled. "We were friends almost six months before we started dating. We used to watch the drama show 'Scrubs' on Tuesday nights. We'd also meet up at Our House bar off Huntington Avenue, where a lot of Northeastern students go."

At Northeastern, Sarofeen also met his current roommate, Joe, of Connecticut along with three others from the Nutmeg State, Mark, Matt and Chris. They lived across the hall from him sophomore year.

"Meeting those guys was great because up until then I was having trouble meeting people because I lived in an upperclassman dorm freshman year and everybody already had a group of friends," Sarofeen said.

"My roommate is a musician so I've really gotten into listening to different types of music. We usually go to places like the House of Blues, the Mideast, Harper Ferry and other places to watch local bands. Also he taught me how to play the harmonica, and I've sat in with him during a couple shows at some local bars."

Karen said her son called once and played the harmonica for her. "He said, 'Ma, listen to this.'"

Wheelchair rugby

As fulfilling as college was, Sarofeen said he needed an athletic fix in his life. He learned about wheelchair rugby during his early months of rehabilitation. He hooked on with the Pitbulls in 1997.

"One of the first things I remember was the smell of burnt aluminum from the wheels moving across the floor," Sarofeen recalled. "You know it's an intense game when you can smell that."

Quad rugby players must have a combination of upper and lower extremity impairment to be considered eligible. Players are given a classification number from one of seven classifications ranging from 0.5 to 3.5. The 0.5 player has the greatest impairment. Sarofeen is an 0.5.

The game is played on a regulation-sized basketball court, and four players from each team are allowed on the court at a time. Classifications of the four players on the court must total no more than 8.0 points at one time.

Players pass a volleyball while advancing into the opponent's half court and then crossing over the goal line with the ball in one player's possession for a point.

Learning the sport

Before Rob had his van, Karen drove him to Boston Pitbulls' practice two times a week to Brockton.

"We would talk all the way home," said Karen. "He loved it from Day One when we sat him in the chair. Seeing him active all over was a thrill for me."

Sarofeen can lift his right arm over his head, but not his left. He can move his wrists and hands, but he can't open and close his fingers. Catching and throwing were no longer second nature.

"He would tell me, 'Ma, I gotta be able to pick up this ball and catch it,'" said Karen. "We would practice with a volleyball downstairs in our house with the T.V. on. I would bounce the ball on his lap, and he'd catch it. We'd throw it back and forth."

It paid off because Sarofeen is now the Pitbulls' starting 0.5, has made several all-tourney teams at the 0.5 spot and is the team captain.

Ken MacDonald, 37, longtime Boston Pitbulls player, said he could tell Sarofeen would be an excellent rugby player the moment he began playing.

"We were doing a passing drill, and he caught the ball by tucking it into his chest," MacDonald said. "I said, 'You were a baseball player before, huh?' And he said, 'Yeah.' I was a baseball player, too, and you can tell who the athletes were before they got injured."

What is Sarofeen's role?

"An 0.5 player's position is extremely important because they're primarily on defense," said Boston Pitbulls coach Jane Warrington. "They need to have a working relationship with the 3.5 players. Rob has a real good eye for reading the play."

Sarofeen can't move as fast as the 3.5s, who have more power in their arms and hands to spin their wheels, throw and catch. At practice in Brockton, Sarofeen reached for the ball at the side of his chair, tucked it against his wheel, and, after about 20 seconds, guided the ball up his wheel and put it into his lap.

What Sarofeen lacks in physical skill, he makes up for with intuition, coach Warrington said. He knows where to be and can set picks to free up his quicker teammates, his coach said.

"He's my voice on the court," Warrington said.

Several times during practice, Sarofeen halted play by talking to a teammate or his coach. He offered different ways of running plays.

"Anybody who's coached Rob always said he would make a good coach because he thinks he knows it all," said Karen. "He was a difficult kid to coach, without a doubt. But he can figure out a strategy so well."

Sarofeen doesn't mind being out of the spotlight.

"I can't score all the goals, and I had to learn my role," Sarofeen said. "You try to get under the skin of the higher players and take them out of the game, like Jim Thompson of Philly, a 2.5. I kick his ass all the time, and he hates it."

Quad rugby was originally called murderball because of its violent nature. At practice, the Pitbulls slammed their chairs into one another, like bumper cars at a carnival.

"My first impression of the games were guys just killing each other," Sarofeen said.

Sarofeen can keep up with the game's aggressive nature, said Fullerton, his girlfriend. She said he's intense even off the court.

"I have to shut him up sometimes, he talks so much about it," she said.

Other benefits

The need for competition and championship title are not the game's only benefits for Sarofeen.

Karen said it's good for his breathing, and being active keeps him healthy.

Wheelchair rugby also gave him a healthy perspective on life in a wheelchair, Sarofeen said.

"You learn a lot travelling with these guys, sharing stories about how they got hurt and how they live their lives," said Sarofeen. "You hear about people getting married, having kids, running businesses and playing sports. It gives you something to look forward to.

"I had a lot of questions about what I could and couldn't do. But the more people I met through rugby, the more questions were answered. Plus, you're not the minority. It's a refreshing change."

The sport does takes its toll on athletes. Boston trainer Cindy Ellis said tendinitis in the shoulders and arms is common. At the practice in Brockton, Sarofeen often grimaced in pain as he wheeled off to the side and used a wall to stretch his arms and shoulders.

Tom Hamill, 44, United States Quad Rugby commissioner, said the pain is worth it. He has been playing for Magee Rebels, the team in Philadelphia, for close to 10 years. He used to play rugby before breaking his neck in an accident. He is an 0.5 player like Sarofeen.

"There is a certain level of support that you can only get from other people with disabilities," said Hamill. "They can press you to perform better, and you can always learn from somebody who does a daily activity slightly different than you.

"Medical professionals tend to have answers from their education. Another quad has experience, so they can help with questions like what chairs are high maintenance, what kind of van conversion works best and how can I pull my legs into the bed."

The future

Sarofeen said he hopes to find a job in Boston or on the North Shore in the corporate finance field, but he's not limiting himself to this area.

"I love New England, but wheelchairs and snow mix about as well as oil and water," Sarofeen said.

As far as his paralysis, Sarofeen said he has never been told of new cures.

"I did ask my neurosurgeon about that one time and he told me, 'Look at it this way, if this happened to you 20 years ago, you probably would have never made it through the first night.' So do I hope they find a cure? Yes. But I'm not living my life waiting for it to arrive."

For now, Sarofeen is concentrating on finishing those three classes and receiving his diploma in June.

"It's going to be overwhelming, seeing him graduate," said Karen. "It was overwhelming seeing him graduate with his high school class and getting a standing ovation. That will all come back. There will be that same feeling. It was unfortunate what happened, but we're just so thankful to Rob in any condition. And so many good things have come out it."

Such as winning a national title with the Boston Pitbulls.

"I've been through a lot of aches and pains over the last seven years, but once I held that trophy, it made it all worth the while," said Sarofeen. "I wasn't Rob Sarofeen the kid people see in a wheelchair and feel bad for, I was and still am Rob Sarofeen, quad rugby national champion."

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