Paris Paralympics: Wisconsin athletes seek another gold in wheelchair basketball

Wisconsin’s Jake Williams never expected to coach a wheelchair basketball team with 14 national championships, let alone compete in his third Paralympic Games. 

“After I started coaching, I understood how much support the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater gives, the community gives and the state,” he said. “All of that contributes to the success of Whitewater.” 

Since 1982, the UW-Whitewater Men’s Wheelchair Basketball team has won 14 national championships.

The team’s decades-long success brought Becca Murray to help start the UW-Whitewater’s Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team, and eventually lead the team to its first national championship in 2012.  

“I knew that the men’s team was such a powerhouse,” she said. “You went to Whitewater if you wanted to make a national team. I was able to win three national championships while I was there.”

The two-time Paralympic medalists joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” and said representing Team USA multiple times in wheelchair basketball is “amazing” and an “honor.” 

The women’s team won the  gold medals in Rio in 2016 and Beijing in 2008. Williams said the men’s team hopes to defend its third-consecutive title after winning back-to-back gold medals in Tokyo in 2020 and Rio in 2016. 

Fostering a culture of success

Jeromie Meyer II, another member of Team USA’s men’s wheelchair basketball team and a Whitewater alumnus, also spoke to Jill Nadeau on “The Larry Meiller Show” recently. Meyer attributed the longtime success of Whitewater’s wheelchair basketball program to its founders. 

“The coaches who started the program built a really good foundation of culture. And all the athletes that have come through there and became successful, we’ve all bought into that culture and that idea of success,” Meyer said. “The coaches want us to win at life. They want us to be successful on the wheelchair basketball court, but they also want us to be successful at life, as well.”

UW-Whitewater’s program also nurtures athletes before they get to college, Meyer said.

“UW Whitewater was always a school that us young kids talked about every year. (The campus) hosted a week-long summer camp where we could come stay on campus, live in the dorms for a few days and learn basketball from the best players in the country,” Meyer said. “Then, when looking to go to school, I had known about UW-Whitewater because of my camps, and I had a really great relationship with the coach at the time. It seemed like a no-brainer to go to UW-Whitewater, because all the pieces fit together for me.” 

Intense competition

On Aug. 29, the American men face Spain, while on Aug. 30, the American women face Germany. 

Williams said he expects every match at the summer games to be a physical battle.

“People fall down quite often (and) the game doesn’t stop,” he said.

The wheelchairs used on the basketball court are built to withstand that physicality, Murray said.

“The chair just spins faster than an everyday chair,” she said. “We’re strapped into our ball chairs so that when we do fall over, because it’s so physical, we can just pop right back up.”

Williams said he embraces the physical aspect of the sport as a player and coach.

“The first thing that I do when freshmen come in is make them get up on their own,” he said. “If they can’t do that, then they can’t play.”

Meyer said the games can be intense even for spectators.

“It’s very competitive. The added element of a chair and the contact that comes from the chair is loud, noisy,” Meyer said. “Everybody is communicating very loudly. So when you’re in the midst of a competitive game, it’s a great feeling. It’s a very liberating feeling to know that I can still go out here and compete and really get after it with like minded individuals.” 

Murray said kids should never count themselves out of anything, whether it be sports, art or music.

“You might have to go out and search to find that adaptive way to do it,” she said. “There’s always a way.”