Team 3 (Neon Green) takes inaugural NVWG title
By John Groth and Brittany Martin
Halfway through his first National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG), it’s already turned out to be one awesome homecoming for Jason Rainey.
He’s seen old friends, made new ones and helped Team 3 (Neon Green) to the inaugural three-on-three wheelchair basketball Titan Tournament title Sunday afternoon inside the Huntington Place convention center in Detroit at the 45th NVWG, cosponsored by Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Rainey, along with Freddie Smith, Nakia Merritte, Booker T. Foster and Jesse Lind lifted Team 3 (Neon Green) to a 14-12 victory over Team 4 (Dark Green).
Now, when his family comes to visit him later this week, the 48-year-old Army veteran can show them his new hardware.
“Oh, this is amazing. This is my first time here. I didn’t expect to do much, so this is a nice surprise,” says Rainey, who served as an infantryman from 2006 to 2009 and lost the use of his left foot after being shot during an ambush in 2007 in Salman Pak, Iraq.
Four teams competed in this year’s wheelchair basketball Titan Tournament. Teams consisted of five players apiece, and each team played three games in round-robin pool play. Each game lasted 15 minutes, and the first team to 21 points or whichever team was leading after the time ended won each game. Inside baskets counted as one point, while 3-point shots counted as 2 points. Teams had 12 seconds to make a basket or a shot-clock violation occurred, and the ball was checked after each made shot. If an athlete was fouled on a shot, his or her team was awarded a point, but if the foul occurred on the floor, the play resulted in a turnover.
Rainey learned it’s a lot different and more intense than just regular five-on-five wheelchair basketball.
“You’re exposed a lot more because, you know, there’s all that space,” Rainey says. “Well, we just kept playing for each other as a team. And when it got tight, we just kept driving on.”
After hearing last year that the Games was heading to Detroit, Rainey decided he wanted to be back near home this year. A Fort Worth, Texas, resident, he plays wheelchair football for the Irving Outlaws and also plays wheelchair softball. Rainey last visited Detroit three years ago for wheelchair football and the NFL Draft. Move United held its all-star wheelchair football game in 2003, and he also made the Dallas Cowboys’ second-round pick announcement at that year’s NFL Draft. This trip has already been just as fun.
“I’ve never been to anything like this before, so this is amazing. Just the experience and coming out here. So, you know, competing is one thing. But coming out here and seeing everyone — it’s like a little reunion,” Rainey says. “So, it’s nice to get out here and see familiar faces, you know? It’s therapeutic, as well.”
NVWG Operations Manager Kayla Forster thought the event went well, too. Although organizers had hoped to have more than four teams, she says the veterans who participated said they wanted it back.
“So, they gave their ideas on how to make the tournament more competitive, move faster. And some of our our older veterans were really excited for this as an opportunity for our novice veterans, so our novice veterans can be paired up with some of our senior veterans that have been coming for a long time to really learn the game of basketball outside of full-court,” she says. “And they felt like it was better basketball than the five-on-five.”
Psyched Up To Shoot
Army veteran and PVA Buckeye Chapter member Robert Fown was grooving to the beat as he waited for his air rifle competition to start Sunday morning at the 45th NVWG in Detroit.
Inside the Huntington Place convention center, the 70-year-old Johnstown, Ohio, resident, who served from 1972 to 1977 and sustained a level C5-C7 spinal cord injury in a 1976 diving accident, listened to music being played over the speaker system and danced a little in his chair.
“I psych myself up beforehand, and then I try to calm myself down while I’m doing it [shooting],” Fown says.
In air rifle, athletes have 75 minutes to shoot 60 pellets at a target placed 10 meters away, and the highest score possible is 654 points.
Because he’s an incomplete quadriplegic, Fown used a rifle support with a spring on it, giving him a third point of contact. But part way through his round of 60 pellets, Fown decided to switch to one that was taller.
“It’s a matter of trying to still use my right arm to steady it, plus using the support on it, so it’s a matter of three points of contact instead of just two. I’m working on it. I’m going to improve,” Fown says. “I was finding I was shooting low to the left. At the higher level, it was high to the left, so I was able to adjust to the right and get closer to the bull’s eye,” he says.
This is just his second NVWG, and he decided to compete this year because his coach, Patrick Gray, encouraged him to come.
Fown says he gets plenty of shooting practice with friends at home and has his own air rifle, although he didn’t bring it with him this year.
“It’s something I enjoy doing. It helped me work on my patience and anger at myself,” he says. “Just being out with other military people and sharing in our stories.”
He’s also competing in bowling, boccia, disc golf and 9-ball billiards and says 9-ball and bowling are his favorites.
He says he likes air rifle because people are competing against you cheering you on, as well.
“It gets me out of the house, first of all, so I’m not isolated,” Fown says. “It gets me around other people with similar difficulties and similar problems, as well as solutions I may not have thought of, and it generally just lifts my spirits.”
He says he’s not sure he’ll medal in any of his sports, but he “has the medal of being at the Games.”
“No matter how low you are, there’s someone to lift you up,” he says.
Big-Time Bench Press
Once again, Army veteran Anthony Martinez finished with a highlight reel moment at the bench press (also known as powerlifting) competition at the NVWG.
This time, he even surprised himself.
On his third and final attempt, the Army veteran and Lemoore, Calif., resident recorded a 525-pound bench press to surpass even his own expectations Sunday night inside the Huntington Place convention center.
“I’m still speechless, still kind of at a loss for words,” says Martinez, who was injured in a 2013 single-vehicle car accident in Lemoore, Calif., and is a right above-the-knee amputee. “Every year, it’s the same thing. Like, I come in here knowing what I want, and when I accomplish it, I’m still kind of in disbelief that I was able to do what I wanted to do.”
Martinez, who served from 2005 to 2008 as a parachute rigger, hit his first two bench presses. He made his opening 460-pound attempt and then his second one at 500 pounds. Then, after a couple of minutes of taking some deep breaths on the side of the bench, Martinez prepped for his final attempt. He moved back, inhaled a whiff of smelling salts, got situated with the weight bar and made the 525-pound lift. After he finished, he slowly moved up and let out a yell.
“I was only supposed to go to 515. But the way 500 felt, I was like, again, ‘We’re here, third attempt. Go big or go home, man,’” Martinez says.
Swimmers Take Plunge At Grosse Pointe
Adaptive athletes also hit the pool at Grosse Pointe South High School in Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., Sunday evening for the NVWG swimming competition.
For Army veteran and PVA Gateway Chapter member Brian Richard, swimming is something he’s always enjoyed. He was a swimmer most of his junior high and high school years.
The 53-year-old St Louis resident, who served from 1993 to 1997, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001.
“Once I started getting involved in the wheelchair games, I was like, ‘Oh, wait, swimming’s an event?! I love swimming. Let me continue on doing what I do,’” Richard says.
Competing in his third NVWG, he completed the 100-yard backstroke, which he says has become his best stroke, 50-yard freestyle and 75-yard individual medley. He was pleased with his performance in the backstroke and says he completed it to the best of his ability.
“How anyone else looks at it, I don’t care. It’s how you feel you did in yourself,” Richard says.
He doesn’t practice too often at home, but he tries to work with his VA recreation therapist at least once a week. He says he always tries to do better than he did the previous year.
“It’s just focus, put everything out of your mind and just get ready to do what you need to do,” Richard says. “Just perform your best, and that’s all you can do … get in that zone and be prepared. You know what you have to do. Get the job done. Same thing with the military. You’ve got to perform the mission.”