I have never been keen on basketball, but when I tried for the first time Wheelchair Basketball at the end of 2009 I really enjoyed it!
At that time I was attending my third year of University in Padua, so I joined the University team of wheelchair basketball.
The curiosity started the year before when Paolo, a handicapped guy that was a room-mate my first year at the dorm where I lived in, he brought to the dorm his wheelchairs: both the regular one and the basketball one.
I am able-bodied, so theoretically I had no reason to play on a wheelchair but then, I understood that basketball on a wheelchair is just like baseball: with baseball you use the bat, here you use a wheelchair BUT you create more inclusion. Everybody wins!
I will write an article about rules in wheelchair basketball and how similar they are to normal basketball!
We started having challenges in the corridors of the dorm and I became faster than him. He then challenged me on the parquet of a basketball court.
Of course I could not pass and I accepted.
My first training we were just three: me, Paolo and Chiara, a girl that was playing since some years like Paolo.
It was 2009, at CUS Padova, the Sport University Centre of Pauda: here a couple of images of me then. 13 years ago, with some muscles less, a few kilograms left and less skill as well :D
Source: author
And well…yes, at the beginning (this pictures are from my first year of play) I was quite slow, not well coordinated and sometimes I totally missed the gameplay. NOOOOOOOB! 🤣
“Mike, what were you looking at?”
Source: author
And here the “Farewall Gift” that the Padua team gave me my last game. I was quite moved, since I felt them to be more than friends, almost brothers. We were quite young and we shared a lot of our lives. I still feel a deep connection with them and I felt very sad when a couple of them passed away in the recent years.
Source: author
When in 2013 I graduated as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Padua, I returned to my “mother city”, Verona. I immediately asked to Verona’s team if I could join them and they agreed, since I could help a lot with what I had learnt so far.
When I joined Verona’s team I was already playing since 4 years. And some skills were starting to show up.
Source: author
With Verona’s team, I contributed to create the biggest project in Italy for the presentation of Wheelchair basketball in the schools. On average for some years, we presented the sport to more than 2000 students, bringing them the wheelchairs so they could try and then play against me and athletes that usually came with me to hold the presentation. Like the one below, where we were showing a movie that we realized with our team.
Source: author
Both in Padua and Verona, I attended a national championship, the 2° Division and a couple of years in Verona we missed the play-off for the 1° Division for a little nothing.
If in Padua I learnt the basics and some good fundamentals, in Verona I had the chance to train against players that were taller than me, forcing me to focus on how to get the best shooting position inside the box and enhancing my shooting range from outside the box, to make the defense to open and to allow our players to enter more easily.
Here our last Team picture together: you will find me with the number 15
Source: https://www.facebook.com/OlympicVerona
I loved playing in Verona and I am sure that if I had not moved to Modena to live with Mary (Maria, my wife), I was still playing with them, trying to reach the playoffs for the First Division.
When I arrived here, in Modena, I was still playing with Verona’s team, but then Covid came and our championship was forced to stop.
The team from Reggio Emilia, which I played while I was playing with Verona as well (since they were two different categories), welcomed me immediately as a player and then as a coach as well!
So I became their coach. We won some nice games, but the team is growing, is quite young in age and also in basketball experience, so I am making them grow technically individually and as a team.
Basketball is an individual game, played in team.
This is a wonderful definition that one of my former coach once said, and it remained impressed in my memory.
So, I am now fully involved with Reggio Emilia, that I have been coaching since last April and since last September I have started playing again. I am not at the same level as before, since Verona’s training were far tougher than what I am doing here, but also the people are different and here another priority is inclusion!
And here is the team, I am coaching (and now also playing) in Reggio Emilia
Source: https://www.facebook.com/ASDReggioEmilia
Two more players have joined our team this year, but we do not have yet taken updated Team-pictures :D
Last game, we had on 22nd January was a Loss against a team from Vicenza, more experienced team that plays in Second Division. We are playing in a lower category, for the moment, but who knows if we will manage to reach Second Division as well!
So, this is my journey through 13 years of wheelchair basketball, from being a complete noob to becoming a coach and a decent player as well!
I will dedicate an article to my evolution in the approach to the sport, to the handicap and to people as well!
Stay tuned and if you have questions or curiosities, feel free to ask!
@rob23 , I think it took longer than expected but I finally managed to write about my story in Wheelchair basketball :D
Veews
