A Q+A on Inclusion with Wheelchair Basketball Legend Joey Johnson

What does this sport mean to you? How has it influenced and shaped your life?

Wheelchair basketball has been a part of my life for nearly 40 years. I love the game and it has given me so much. I have tried walking away from the sport to pursue other interests but it keeps dragging me back in. I joke with people that it is my drug of choice. This sport has given me so much. I have met friends all over the world and it has given me an opportunity to see and learn about a lot of wonderful places.

When I was first diagnosed with my hip disease, I would say that adaptive sport gave me hope. When able-bodied sports were taken away from me, wheelchair basketball gave me the outlet I so desperately needed. Along with hope, it helped develop a passion in me that allowed me the opportunities to compete all over the world.

What does the inclusive culture of the sport mean to you?

I feel very fortunate to have grown up in our sport here in Canada. As far back as I can remember, we have allowed minimal disability and able-bodied (AB) athletes to compete in our domestic league. I also have a clear memory of when we started allowing ABs to compete at our national events. I can honestly say that I almost took the inclusiveness part of our sport for granted. I was young enough to be youthfully ignorant of the political side of these sorts of decisions. When I would see ABs wanting to play the sport, I just thought it was because they had found a great sport, through friends or family or acquaintances, and who wouldn’t want to play such a fun sport.

How did inclusion help get you started in the sport alongside your family/friends and set you on the path to becoming a 5-time Paralympian?

When able-bodied sports were taken away from me at the age of eight, I was frustrated and saddened that I couldn’t play and compete with my siblings and close community friends in able-bodied sports. Of course, I would go on and make new friends through the sport of wheelchair basketball, but I am so thankful that wheelchair basketball gave me an opportunity to play alongside my family and friends. In getting to share this sport with them, I believe it helped motivate me and pushed me to excel in the sport.

How did the inclusive nature of the sport shift your perceptions about disability? Do you think this sport can be a catalyst for positive social change in that way?

I truly believe that wheelchair basketball can be used as a tool for positive changes in our society. It is the only sport I can think of that is truly all inclusive. With the proper classification system, it doesn’t matter who is sitting in the chair, they are all on an equal playing field with their teammates and competitors.

Wheelchair basketball is the epitome of what a team game is. You can have the best player in the world on one side, but they can easily lose to the better team on the other side. Having 5 players on the court have to work together to achieve a common goal is fantastic. With the proper classification system, it allows players of all levels of function to work together to become the best team possible.

How do you feel inclusion elevates the game and brings people together?

For me, having the sport be inclusive was instrumental to having a team to play on. In having grown up in a more rural province in Canada, we didn’t have the number of athletes with disabilities as other more populous provinces. So, without the inclusion of minimal disability and able-bodied athletes, I would not have had a team to play with or athletes to train with.

I have had some interesting conversations with current and former athletes around the world about this subject. And some are all for inclusiveness at all levels, some are against inclusiveness at any level, and there are some who have mixed feelings (inclusiveness at the grassroots and development levels but not on the high-performance side of things).

I am all for it at all levels and my argument is this. In all my years of playing wheelchair basketball, I have never met any athlete, able-bodied or a daily wheelchair user, who came out to their first basketball practice and were able to dominate all aspects of the game. They lacked something – shooting, chair skills, court smarts – that would have to be worked on and developed over the course of thousands of hours and years of practice. If those athletes wanted to dedicate that much of their lives to this sport, I say great! If they become good enough to represent their country at a Paralympics, even better. Go do it and have fun.

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