When I play wheelchair basketball,
I forget what time it is, what day it is, and sometimes even where
I am. I just give up all the stresses of school, home, and the
outside world and can simply focus on the challenge of mastering
my sport.
Which, for me, will
entail many more hours of forgetting where I am, what time it
is, and what day we're on. I've got a long way to go! I love basketball
so much, which is unusual in my family - they're not very sport-oriented.
If you ask the average everyday bystander, they would say it's
unusual for another reason: being disabled since birth doesn't
exactly fit into people's idea of an athlete.
My first exposure
to wheelchair sport was at a Sportfest at the University of Bristish
Columbia when I was 10 years old. The BC Wheelchair Basketball
Demo Team came to demonstrate wheelchair basketball to us and
let some of us who wanted to try it join in on the game. From
the first time I raced down the court hotly pursued by five bigger,
stronger, faster players, I was in love. With the sport, that
is, not the players. Unfortunately, the first shot I ever took
on a basketball hoop was on my own team's court! Fortunately,
it took me another four years to reach the 10-foot basket. I credit
Wheelchair Basketball with intervening at a critical point in
my life. I had already experienced being left out in elementary
PE classes and had concluded that organized sport wasn't for me.
I wasn't hurt by it, or even upset; sport simply had no importance
to me. But then I started going to junior practices in Richmond.
It was the first time I had met other kids in wheelchairs, and
there we were, all playing a real, live, organized sport and loving
it! What a confidence booster to be able to go back to my grade
5 classroom and tell my friends about my new sport, especially
when all my friends were on some sort of team, soccer, hockey,
swimming and gymnastics.
From the first time
I raced down the court hotly pursued by five bigger, stronger,
faster players, I was in love. With the sport, that is,
not the players. Unfortunately, the first shot I ever took
on a basketball hoop was on my own team's court!
I continued to play basketball throughout high school, involving
my friends on my team. It was the first time that all of us
could play on a level field, so to speak. We went to the BC
Games, local tournaments, and most recently the Canada Winter
Games, in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Through basketball I have
made fast friends, travelled the world, and found confidence
I didn't know I had. I am incredibly thankful to the sport of
wheelchair basketball for giving me all of this, and pleased
to be able to give a little back to the sport by coaching a
junior team in Surrey BC. This is a group of kids 8-18 who have
s, Nike Canada, CAAWS, girls body image,where to play sports,
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I want to thank CAAWS and Nike for supporting me in my drive
to achieve all I can in my sport. Their generous grant will
help pay my league and national team fees for the year, freeing
up the time I would otherwise have spent trying to raise those
funds for coaching and training.
Jocelyn Tomkinson
Canadian
Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical
Activity contact
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