The Women’s NCAA Tournament Championship on Sunday will feature a first of four initiatives aimed at promoting adaptive sports. The Team USA women’s wheelchair basketball team will play against a team of college all-stars in an eight-minute scrimmage at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. This exhibition is part of the joint U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee/NCAA Para-College Inclusion Project, launched last year with the goal of increasing Paralympic understanding and awareness while engaging schools with adaptive sports.
Courtney Ryan, a Paralympic bronze medalist, member of the U.S. team for Paris, and an assistant coach at the University of Arizona, believes that sharing the stage with NCAA athletes at such an exciting time in women’s basketball is a significant step toward gaining respect and awareness for wheelchair basketball. “The opportunity to showcase women’s wheelchair basketball at the NCAA D1 Women’s Final Four shows incredible growth for the Paralympic movement,” said Ryan.
Paralympic gold medalists Rebecca Murray and Natalie Schneider are among several Paralympic medalists set to play for Team USA. On the other hand, Paralympic bronze medalists Bailey Moody and Zoe Voris will play for the Collegiate All-Stars for their respective university programs, the University of Alabama and the University of Texas-Arlington.
The project also includes the semi-finals and final of the national collegiate singles wheelchair tennis championship during the Division I singles championship in May as well as national collegiate wheelchair championships in 100 meters during Division I outdoor track and field championships in June. Additionally, the USOPC and NCAA plan to launch a hub for adaptive sport athletes with information targeted at high school athletes and college administrators to grow Paralympic sports.
