Quad Rugby/Story - The Zen of Wheelchair Rugby

UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION

March, 2006

“The Zen of Wheelchair Rugby”
by Adam G. Wheeler

The first time I sat in a rugby chair I felt like Lance Armstrong hopping into a Formula One Racer. The speed, agility, and feel were nothing like my everyday wheels. I felt powerful. I felt like I had been wasting my time since sustaining a spinal cord injury 6 years before; finishing my degree, focusing on work, ignoring the athletic instincts that had helped shape my entire life. I rolled onto the court that night and pushed with everything I had, never stopping for 2 glorious hours. I hit other people in wheelchairs. I rammed into them with all the force I could muster, disregarding technique or strategy. In my mind I was back on the football field, sprinting towards the end zone, kicking field goals, tackling halfbacks. I crashed repeatedly into the floor, struggling each time to pull my paralyzed body back up into the chair. Small beads of sweat welled up on my forehead as my fingers became blackened by rubber and blistered from friction. I was born again.

But who would’ve ever thought “Wheelchair Rugby?” The entire concept of quadriplegics crashing their wheelchairs...it’s illogical. I was an athlete. I had scholarship offers for football and dreams of playing professional basketball in Europe. Now I was paralyzed. Now I was a wheelchair user that needed to have a family, get a good job, and prove to the world that I was not crippled or handicapped. My athletic days were a passing moment of glory.

Then again, athletics have always had meaning much deeper than physical attributes. The gladiators actually fought for their lives while entertaining the roaring masses. The Greeks showcased their athletic prowess to the world, symbolically demonstrating dominance and power. Even today, athletics are much more than homeruns and slam dunks. Sports teach discipline, hard work, humility, achievement, and perhaps most importantly, the power to succeed. Wheelchair rugby has every component of true athleticism, combining speed, strength, strategy, and endurance. But much deeper than that, it has the ability to evoke ambition and the power to heal what science cannot.

Juan Pablo came to Detroit from Colombia to be healed. He brought a private nurse and a close friend to help him in his journey toward recovery. A spinal cord injury took his ability to move the majority of his body, leaving only gross movements of his arms and head. One month earlier he had undergone an experimental surgery that removed tissue from the olfactory portion of his brain and transplanted it into his broken spinal cord. Juan Pablo spent 8 hours everyday thereafter, aggressively exercising; trying to force his brain and spinal cord to reconnect, to heal and bridge the gap of a scarred cord. He dedicated his life to his recovery. He fought everyday to regain the strength he once had, while simultaneously fighting to ignore that his hopes were slowly drowning in a motionless sea of disappointment. The progress was slow and his positive attitude had diminished. He began questioning how he would ever succeed without his suit of strength. Juan Pablo began to lose his spirit.

It was Juan Pablo’s first time in a rugby chair that sent a shock through his spine, as if he had just plugged himself into a battery charger. He spun the chair to the left and then to the right with the gentle ease of his weakened limbs. As a smile crept up his face, he gathered just enough momentum to crash into me. The look on his face was that of a gladiator preparing for battle. He was alive again. Juan Pablo never missed a practice or a game after that first day. He studied the sport like a doctor studies medicine, so that he could bring this “cure” back to Colombia. When he left the U.S. after 6 months he said, “Rugby is the most significant thing that has happened to me since I broke my neck. More than therapies, more than surgeries, more than anything else...I know I will still succeed.”

Sports and life. In my 12 short years of an injured spinal cord I’ve discovered a much deeper meaning in many parts of life. But, I would have never guessed that a personal love of sports would become the catalyst of my personal recovery, ambition, and mission. For all of us, it all starts with a simple transfer into a wheelchair very different from our own. A wheelchair with the dents, scrapes, and crashes of LIFE scarred all over it...standing strong and ready for action. A chair capable of transforming you into an unstoppable force, a storm, driven to accomplish more than you had ever set out to do. A bone-crushing tool capable of guiding a damaged spirit to the highest channels of enlightenment.

The entire concept is illogical.

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