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Paralympic clinic teaches disability sports

Written by Travis Detherage, The Shorthorn staff

Monday, 21 September 2009 08:18 PM

Tennis instructor Carlos Turic demonstrates how to hit a backhand during the Paralympics sports clinic on Saturday evening at the UTA tennis courts. Tennis was one of the three sports introduced at the Clinic as well as Track and Field, and indoor soccer. (The Shorthorn: Michael Rivera)

The Division of Student Affairs and the Campus Recreation Department hosted a Paralympic sports clinic on Saturday for disabled veterans, UTA students, community members and professionals who work among people with disabilities.

Track and field, tennis and indoor soccer were among the wheelchair clinics available. Swimming was canceled because of the cold water as a result of the amount of rain in the past two weeks.

Doug Garner, Movin’ Mavs head coach, who orchestrated the event, said putting on a program like this helps educate people about disability, or adaptive, sports.

“People can find some programs they can participate in, because it’s not in the schools. This gives them some resources for activities they can do,” Garner said. “There are a lot of these people who are here as volunteer observers and a lot of them are adaptive sports students, physical therapists and occupational therapists who want to find out about adaptive sports.”

UTA received a $16,000 grant from the U.S. Paralympics to host adaptive sports clinics. Garner said the grant allows them to work within the community to try to develop a good infrastructure of adaptive sports programs.

“It helps elevate UTA up to another level,” said Garner.

Instructors and volunteers were available to help the participants. During the track and field session, the instructors taught the fundamentals of pushing a track chair in a race and the proper technique for throwing a javelin. One disabled instructor, Darlene Hunter, who coached track and field for 15 years, said UTA putting together a Paralympic sports clinic was awesome.

“It’s good for the kids because a lot of them have never seen a different sport, they get into one sport and think it’s all they have to offer,” Hunter said. “Plus it brings them in to a different community of individuals that coached track or tennis.”

Hunter, who is also an assistant basketball coach, brought some of her players to the sports clinic to learn sports other than basketball.

“The kids around here have never been exposed to more than just basketball, so this is the first time that these kids have pushed a track chair,” said Hunter. “A lot of them have been asking about track, so this is a good opportunity for them to get to see it.”

Wayne Holt, a track and field clinic participant, said it was his first time participating in track and he was interested being with disabled people.

“I wanted to see people who are in the same journey as I am,” Holt said. “When you see a group of people like me, you see common ground, that’s why I always like to come out,”

During the tennis clinic, participants worked on backhand hitting, forehand hitting and serving.

Carlos Turic, who led the clinic, played a tennis match to show proper technique. At the end of the tennis clinic, participants didn’t want to break for lunch. Turic said it was a great opportunity to introduce the game to people in the community, individuals with disabilities as well as volunteers.

“You don’t see these very often anymore. It’s huge for UTA, Doug Garner and his group to step up and do this. I think it’s just wonderful,” Turic said. “This was a really good group of kids, a lot of them have potential, if they get to experience success they go home happy and that’s the primary goal. It’s a huge advantage to have multiple sports at one place.”
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 January 2010 01:43 PM )

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