Hoop dreams: 6-year-old in wheelchair wants to play with the able-bodied

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Hoop dreams

6-year-old in wheelchair wants to play with the able-bodied

By , Globe Staff, 3/15/2002

WAKEFIELD - He's a 6-year-old boy who loves sports. Colm shoots

hoops and dribbles with his first-grade classmates during recess and has

played floor hockey, T-ball, and basketball in town and church-sponsored

leagues. He sold dozens of homemade bracelets to raise enough money to buy

his own skateboard.

Sometimes being in a wheelchair made it tougher, but it never stopped him

from playing sports. Until now.

Crushed by the Wakefield Basketball Association's refusal to let him play on

a team with able-bodied first- and second-graders, Colm and his parents have

filed a federal lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act that tests

the right of disabled children to participate in group sports.

''I play basketball more than anything else. It's fun,'' said Colm, who was

born with a spinal cord defect and can't use his legs. ''Almost my whole

class is on the basketball team. My little friends said, `That's not fair

that you can't play.'''

When Colm showed up in his wheelchair last November to join the WBA's

youngest division, a coach handed him a gray team jersey, number 3. But

minutes later, the boy was forced to give the jersey back by a league offi-

cial who said a wheelchair would pose a safety hazard on the court and

require changes in the rules of the game.

''I didn't feel good,'' said Colm, who said he plays basketball in his back

yard and at school with some of the same children who are on the WBA team,

and no one has ever been hurt by his wheelchair. And the WBA games are

played in the gym at the school he attends, Dolbeare Elementary School.

''They're afraid of my wheelchair, that if someone is running they'll trip

over my wheelchair and that would be a foul for me,'' said Colm, popping

wheelies in the kitchen of his Plaza Road home to demonstrate his ability to

control his chair.

''If I see someone running and they're getting close to me, I'll just stay

behind them and let them go.''

But Joe Sancinito, president of the WBA and one of the parents who founded

the nonprofit league 13 years ago, insisted that while Colm may be able to

control his wheelchair, he wouldn't be able to prevent other children from

bumping into him during a game.

''Our concern is that one of the kids will get hurt running into his

wheelchair. It could be anywhere from nothing happening to literally

somebody getting killed,'' Sancinito said. ''These kids are running, diving

all over the floor for the ball.

''Sometimes it is mayhem out there.''

Sancinito also said they'd have to change the rules for traveling or

double-dribbling and that would undermine efforts to teach children the

basics of the game.

But Colm's parents say the league already has altered its rules for first-

and second-graders and they insist the league is discriminating against

their son.

The WBA referred Colm to its Challenger League, which was created more than

a decade ago for mentally and physically handicapped children but currently

has no wheelchair players.

When asked why it wasn't a safety hazard for Colm to play in his wheelchair

alongside other disabled children who play on foot, Sancinito said the

Challenger League is less aggressive and competitive and there are more

adults on the court to supervise players during games.

But Colm's parents, Rhonda Hennessy and Andy , said their son

doesn't want to play in that league because the children are much older and

he would miss the camaraderie of being on a team with his classmates.

''We try to teach our children to be tolerant of our differences, but the

WBA is saying it's fine for Colm to go to school with able-bodied kids and

go to after-school programs with able-bodied kids, but he can't play

basketball, the one sport he could be good at, with them,'' Hennessy said.

Added Andy , ''They didn't give him a chance like they gave everyone

else. He'd be like every other kid on the team.''

Stan Eichner, a lawyer for the Disability Law Center, which is representing

Colm, said the case is about ''a young boy who is trying to live a full and

complete life, just like any other boy.''

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 3/15/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

Source: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/074/metro/Hoop_dreams+.shtml