Wheelchair basketball: One woman's story

Originally titled "Hoop Dreams," from the September 2007 issue of Canadian Living Magazine, on newsstands or click here to purchase online.

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As the game began, I could practically taste the adrenaline. The smell of burning rubber filled the stadium, and the sound of colliding metal was almost deafening. The coach called my name, and I hurried down the bench, raring to go. I was fouled on my first play and sat ready to take the foul shot, when I was suddenly overwhelmed by the thousands of fans and dozens of media cameras snapping pictures.

This was my first game as a Paralympian during the 2004 Games in Athens. I was momentarily frozen with fear. I soon regained my focus, and from then on, it was just about playing basketball.

Love for the game
I fell in love with stand-up basketball the first time I played it. I was 10 years old and living in Edmonton. My older brother Jamie was outside shooting hoops and I asked him if he would teach me how to do a layup. He took out the sidewalk chalk and traced it around my feet and put a big X on the backboard where I was supposed to aim the ball to get it to fall into the basket. I tried for a while, but I must have been pretty horrible because, even with his enormous patience, he gave up and left.

But I kept practising. At one point my mom asked Jamie where I was and he said, “I don't know. I left her outside five hours ago.” At the time, I was already athletic. I enjoyed soccer, sailing, and track and field. But on that afternoon, basketball stole my heart.

Pleasure and pain
As a teen I spent an exhausting but exhilarating several years playing on high school and provincial teams. My coach in college, Gerry Cousins, was all about passion and drive, and I learned a lot from him about remembering why I play: for the creativity, for the teammates and especially for the passion.

However, with this passion came pain. Beginning at about age seven, I had problems with my knees; they seemed to always be weak and sore. I was also showing signs of muscle imbalance. I spent thousands of hours with different physiotherapists and doctors around Edmonton, but my pain was always written off; an athletic girl like me was bound to have problems.

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