At the HUB Sports Center in Liberty Lake, a young boy in a Spokane jersey guided his wheelchair to the baseline and lobbed up a shot.
He missed by a hair, but the frenetic pace of wheelchair basketball left him no time to dwell on the mistake. As an opponent grabbed the rebound, ten players spun their chairs and took off like rockets down the court.
The game was part of the annual Spokane Showdown tournament, co-hosted by Providence and local adaptive sports organization ParaSport Spokane. This past weekend, athletes and fans flocked to eastern Washington to participate in the tournament, which has been going on for nearly 10 years and is the largest in the Pacific Northwest.
Twenty-five teams from 12 programs competed this year, traveling to Liberty Lake from as far away as Utah and Southern California.
Chelsea McClammer, a three-time Paralympian, coaches and plays for the ParaSport women’s team, which is one of the largest in the country.
“I’ve had a few athletes come up to me on their way out and say they love this tournament so much because of all the different age groups and divisions that we host here,” she said.
In addition to its women’s division, ParaSport Spokane also offers co-ed prep, varsity, military, recreational and competitive teams.
Prep team assistant coach Z Zubrick, who also plays for the military team, said that from his perspective as a rehab counselor, the all-veterans atmosphere is something special.
“When I work with civilian counselors, I let them know, ‘Don't ever tell a vet you understand. You've got no clue,’” Zubrick said. “Whereas when we're talking with these guys, after the game, before the game, we're able to talk, ‘How you doing in real life? What are you going through right now? How can I help?’”
That mentorship is part of ParaSport’s broader culture, according to development director David Greig.
“Sometimes when we travel, we’ll have athletes with higher functional capabilities room with an athlete with lower functional capabilities who does their stuff really well and is very independent,” Greig said. “And then that person, they're just like, ‘Oh, shoot.’”
Greig calls that phenomenon “positive role modeling,” and players who have experienced it agree that it’s powerful for athletes with different disabilities and life experiences to spend time together.
For years, ParaSport athlete Cathy Muñoz played and coached standing basketball. When she had her leg amputated later in life, her prosthetist referred her to ParaSport, where she now plays on the women’s team.
“I’m definitely much older than all of them,” she said, laughing.
Muñoz is in her 50s. One of her teammates is 15 years old.
“Actually, it's very fun,” she added. “The coach in me loves it, because I can give them pointers on actual basketball things, and then they can give me pointers on how to control a wheelchair, which is very foreign to me.”
Muñoz isn’t the only athlete who’s learned something from a younger player. Zubrick has only used a wheelchair since 2015.
“I hadn't been home from the hospital just a few weeks,” he recalled. “My wife comes in, and I'm scratching all over my leg. And she's like, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I have an itch.’ ‘Where?’ ‘I don't know. It keeps moving.’ Well, I talked to one of the younger players, and they're like, ‘Oh, that's easy. If you think you have an itch on your leg, scratch your elbow.’ I'm like, ‘What?’ And it works.”
This year’s Spokane Showdown came at an interesting moment for ParaSport Spokane, which offers six adaptive sports and a strength and conditioning program. The organization is entirely volunteer run, but David Greig said his team is looking into hiring full-time staff.
“We had so many new athletes these last couple years,” he said. “So it's just making sure we're imbuing our culture as a program and our vision of values as a program appropriately and having new staff that are on board with that. You know, winning is not the ultimate outcome. It's better human beings.”
That’s certainly a noble mindset. Yet at the Spokane Showdown, the trash talk, clutch shots and competitive play made clear that wheelchair basketball is just like any sport: When the ball hits the court, all bets are off.
