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May 10, 2013 - Rodney Williams, an Air Force Wheel Chair Basketball coach, brings 40 years of adaptive sports experience to his team at the Warrior Games, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Williams coached the Marine Corps team to two silver medal wins. Williams was diagnosed with polio when he was 9-months-old. Photo by U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Justin Boling)
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (May 10, 2013) -- A silver haired man
sits in his wheelchair watching behind thick brimmed black glasses
and listening to the squeak of wheels against the wooden court.
Despite his mother being told if he survived he would be
quadriplegic, he found and shares a love of basketball.
"I
love being in a one or two point game, a real fight, it is the best
feeling," said Rodney Williams, an Air Force wheelchair basketball
team coach. "I don't like burying a team by twenty points or losing
by twenty points."
“I like it when two teams are doing the
best that they can.”
Williams, a Para Olympian turned coach
and advisor of disabled veterans, currently guides his team in the
2013 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“I have been
playing basketball for about forty years,” said Williams. “I was
diagnosed with polio when I was nine-months-old.
“I was not
able to be athletic till I got into my wheelchair,” Williams
continued. “I didn't start using it for sports like basketball till
I was a senior in college.
Williams brings his life and adaptive sports
experience to his wheel chair basketball team at the Games.
“I think the whole plan of the program is to have people like us be
mentors,” Williams said. “Someone who can show them that there are
things they can do.
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“I played ball, I adapted very quickly and I fell in love
with it.”
Williams had coached teams in the civilian
world, but in 2010 he read about the first Warrior Games.
“I decided that it was something I really wanted to get
involved in,” said Williams. “The next year I got a call
from the Marine Corps, and they said I had been recommended
as a potential coach.”
According to him, the team's
military discipline made his job easy.
“They are
capable and have a great mindset that is very refreshing to
me,” Williams said. “If you tell them to jump of a cliff
those guys will say' which one coach.'”
“You can see
their fighting spirit come out.”
Williams never
served in the military, and his players give him an inside
look into the cost of national defense.
“I wasn't
feeling quite right after a few practices,” Williams said.
“I thought I was just jet lagged, but after thinking about
it I was just really depressed.”
Some of his players
had suffered from improvised explosive attacks, and other
combat wounds. They had lost limbs, felt pain and seen
horrors no one should ever experience.
“I would
listen to the player's stories, and inside I would think to
myself, ‘My god how do you deal with something like that,'”
Williams said. “Their stories were horrible, and as soon as
one player would tell his story another would say, “that is
nothing.”
“I went and talked to one of the support
staff and she said ‘look at it this way, the time that you
take their mind off their troubles is a good time for
them.'”
Though the player's lives have changed due
to their health, on the court they just play ball, with
Williams to be a coach, counselor and example.
“The
changes you see in these guys is amazing,” Williams said.
“Guys will come in and not quite understand. We get them in
the program then you see their natural athletic instincts
come out.
“You see a smile on their face.”
He
coached the Marine Corps team to two silver medal wins,
According to Williams this year he wants his Air Force team
on the podium.
“This experience has made me grow from
the friendships,” added Williams. “I cannot travel anywhere
without someone calling out, ‘hey coach.'”
By USMC Sgt. Justin Boling
Provided through
DVIDS
Copyright 2013
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