The New York Times reported in its November 4, 2006 edition on wheelchair athletes training for the New York City Marathon, and the respectful rivalry that has developed between the athletes and alumni from the University of Arizona and the University of Illinois.  Arizona and Illinois are two universities that have driven the sport of wheelchair racing, with the nation’s premier track and road-racing teams for wheelchair athletes.  The schools give scholarships or tuition waivers.  They are serious about their recruitment and training and have the results to prove it.

The Illinois wheelchair sports program began in 1949 as World War II veterans returned home with disabilities.  At Arizona, the program grew from a small adaptive physical education program into a program with 60 athletes in five sports.  Arizona has one of the largest adaptive physical education programs for persons with disabilities in the nation.  Besides the track team, the privately-funded adaptive athletics program at Arizona includes a men’s and women’s basketball team, and a rugby team for quadriplegics.

On any given day, it is common to see disabled athletes among the nonathletes around the wheelchair-accessible Arizona campus.  In wheelchairs, they roll up ramps and into buildings, or easily fit through the wide doors inside those buildings.  The disabled sports teams are represented on campus side by side with the able-bodied teams.

The full New York Times article with photographs is available here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/sports/sportsspecial/04wheelchair.html?ref=sportsspecial

Further information regarding the University of Arizona’s Adaptive Athletics Program and the Disability Resource Center is available at: http://drc.arizona.edu.

Edward O. Comitz, a Tucson native, and Patrick T. Stanley, an alumnus of the University of Arizona, are disability insurance attorneys at Comitz | Beethe.  They provide legal representation to protect the disability benefits of medical and dental professionals nationwide and throughout metropolitan Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tucson, Flagstaff and Yuma. We provide disability income claim advice, assistance with filing disability claims, including completion of disability claim forms and representation in disability insurance litigation.