UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION

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1997 Results

By DEAN POLING
Valdosta Times Staff Writer

VALDOSTA—Clashing metal echoes across the gym floor. Not a clumsy, tumbling, crashing noise but a skilled crunch. What may have been heard as armor-clad knights precisely collided in midjoust.

Players push away from the jam-up on the gym floor. A rolling roar fills the air, accentuated by players' grunts and squeaks from rubber sharply turning on waxed wood, before another well-placed, blocking "crunch" of colliding opponents.

When it was developed in Canada in the 1970s, the game was called "murderball." It took the name of quad rugby as it spread into the U.S. in the early 1980's.

It has another name—wheelchair rugby.

Over the weekend, players from Charlotte, N.C., Atlanta, South Fla, Sarasota, Fla., and Tampa, Fla., converged on the Boys Club's Lake Laurie facility to compete in a wheelchair-rugby tournament.

They have no local ties here. They choose Valdosta simply because it is geographically a good "in-between" spot for the various teams. It is the eighth year Valdosta has hosted the tourney.

Though players are in wheelchairs due to a combination of upper- and lower-extremity impairments this is no pity parade.

Competition is rough, tough and-tumble. Specially-made wheelchairs collide in crashes of limbs, spokes and sweat as one team tries to outmaneuver the other to roll over the goal line.

Game rules are defined and strictly enforced.

Four players from each team are allowed on the court, which is a regulation basketball court with a few adjustments. Goal lines at each end of the court measure eight meters wide, with key areas extending 1.75 meters deep from the goal line.

Players repeatedly pass a regulation volleyball while advancing into the other team's half court. A score is earned when a player crosses the goal line with the ball in his possession.

While the offense is trying to cross the opponent's turf, the defensive team blocks them in an effort to steal the ball away and advance to the other side.

The action takes place in four eight-minute periods with four time outs per team.

During play, only three defensive players may enter the key at a time. If a fourth player enters, the team faces a penalty. An offensive player can only stay in the key for 10 seconds, or the ball will be turned over to the other team.

Teams have 10 seconds to get the ball inbounds and 15 seconds to advance the ball into the opponent's court.

A player with the ball has no restricted amount of pushes, but must dribble or pass the ball to a teammate within 10 seconds or the ball is turned over to the other team. Fouls are assessed and penalties can include awarding of a goal, a minute penalty or a turnover.

Players score more than just a solid goal with wheelchair rugby

"I used to think I would have to be in an electric chair all my life," one sweating player says during a brief timeout. "We use manual chairs in quad, and I'm using a manual chair all the time now."

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