Young adaptive athletes try out several sports
by Brittany Martin and John Groth
This year’s Kids Day at the 45th National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG) in Detroit revved the engines for almost a dozen young aspiring athletes.
The event included kids of all ages and abilities and featured several versions of sports in which veteran athletes are competing this week at the NVWG, which is cosponsored by Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Kids were paired with veterans as mentors and tried out a small slalom (obstacle course), a large inflatable basketball hoop game and RC car racing. Each child also received a small RC car to take home and a medal.
Khristian Williams traveled from Lincoln Park, Mich., to attend the Games with his family. His mom, Nique Adams, says the 11-year-old hadn’t stop smiling since he entered the Huntington Place convention center. She says this was his first time trying wheelchair sports and being around so many others in wheelchairs, as he mostly spends time with his twin brother, Christopher.
Williams says his favorite Kids Day activity was basketball, but he also liked watching the morning wheelchair softball game that was in progress.
“I know he was excited … I just want to put him in more things to learn more as he grows older,” Adams says. “I didn’t know they had so many sports out here for wheelchairs. I thought it was just basketball or, like, hockey. But there’s other things here.”
Marine Corps veteran and PVA member-at-large Julian Perez volunteered as a Kids Day mentor for the fourth time. The Hemet, Calif., resident, who served from 1982 to 1986 and had his right leg amputated above the knee after an infection in 2013, says he was always taught in sports to give back and teach the younger generation.
“It’s rewarding to see the smiles on their faces,” he says. “If they get some kind of happiness, it’s all worthwhile.”
Perez helped cheer on the kids as they raced the RC cars.
“I’m hoping the ones I did speak to felt like these people really care. They feel the love from us, and they interact with it,” Perez says. “And then there was something that was weird. I’m staying there with the RC [car] team, watching them play and have a good time. And God put something in my mind: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if the kids could go home with a car?’ A minute later, the guy [Ken Lee, MD] starts telling them, ‘Don’t go nowhere. We have something for you.’ And I went up to him and said, ‘Man, you’re not gonna believe this.’ I said, ‘I didn’t say nothing, but God put that in my mind right before you said it.’ That’s an act of God. It’s beautiful, I think. That’s what this is all about.”
Porcupines Rock In NVWG Softball
Terry Rock clutched his National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG) championship-game signed softball tight. It meant the world to him.
After missing the past six NVWG because of health reasons, the 69-year-old Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Buckeye Chapter member and Navy veteran finally made it back this year. And his Team Porcupine captured Saturday’s NVWG wheelchair softball title.
It’s what he hopes is just the start of a majorly triumphant comeback.
Rock pitched most of the game and provided some key defensive plays at the pitching mound, while teammates Joe Wittkamp and Russ Norris each delivered two two-RBI doubles, as Team Porcupine defeated Team Sleeper, 6-2, inside the Huntington Place convention center at the 45th NVWG. All the wheelchair softball teams were named after state parks.
Rock and Wittkamp each had a hand in the final play, as Tyler Stein’s groundout bounced off Rock’s hands at the pitching mound and back toward second base by Wittkamp, who caught the ball off the bounce and threw it to first base to record the game’s final out.
It was only fitting for the two PVA Buckeye Chapter members, who have been friends for years.
“He’s one of my learners in this game. He gave me knowledge and spirit. Quite a few have. But Joe, he’s like the guy. Totally respect him and how we played today,” Rock says.
Rock, who served from 1980 to 1985, sustained a level T12-L1 spinal cord injury on July 4, 1995, after he flipped his 1965 Chevrolet pickup truck halfway over while heading to the Huron River Valley Campground in Erie County, Ohio. He attended the Games many times over the next 25 years but had to stop competing in 2020 because he broke his left femur. This year, though, he decided he was coming back, denying surgery on that same leg and on his neck because he wanted to compete at the NVWG.
“I knew that my purpose was to come back and play because I needed that feeling in my heart again,” says Rock, who was handed the signed ball after the game.
He and his team delivered.
Team Porcupine scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning to jump to an early 3-0 lead. With Kevin Ferguson on base, Wittkamp hit an RBI ground-rule double over the centerfield wall, and Norris added an RBI ground-rule double through the centerfield fence to put the team up 2-0. And after Marshall Dorman got out, Norris scored after a missed tag at home plate for a three-run lead.
Team Sleeper cut the lead to 3-1 in the top of the second inning, thanks to a Phil Schweitzer RBI double that scored Darryl Aisola. But then Rock and Wittkamp kept them at bay.
Team Porcupine added three more runs in the bottom of the fifth. Ferguson reached first base on an error. After another error moved him to third base, Wittkamp and Norris hit back-to-back RBI doubles to go up 5-1, and Dorman added an RBI single to give the team a 6-1 lead.
Team Sleeper’s Jason Rainey scored on an error to cut the deficit to 6-2 in the top of the sixth inning, but Team Porcupine forced Team Sleeper into three straight outs in the top of the seventh inning to end the game.
Rock says the team’s calm steadiness and patience helped.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a team so calm,” Rock says. “I’ve seen other teams I’ve been on, and once I see them getting all heated up, it creates negativity. And we were in the positive. I just felt it. I felt it that we keep in this mode, ain’t nobody touch us.”