For Melanie Hawtin, finding sport was an important element of her growth as a child.

Born with spina bifida, Hawtin was introduced to sports through her mother’s coworker, who ran a local sports club. As a 5-year-old, Hawtin had the opportunity to try a variety of adaptive sports and was immediately drawn to track and field.

“Sport is so important. It’s a very important piece of the growth of young children, and being able to relate to people,” said Hawtin. “Specifically, for me, growing up in the public school system, I was often not included. I was unable to participate, so, finding a sports club that is geared for people with disabilities, I was able to find my place there a little bit easier than at a public school that was not inclusive at the time.”

In addition to track, Hawtin tried swimming and other adaptive sports but was attracted to the speed of wheelchair racing.

“I just wanted to go fast. That’s all that mattered to me,” she said. “I enjoyed the competitiveness. I think everyone that’s in sport is competitive, and they love that feeling of working towards a goal and being able to achieve it. At the age of five, I was really drawn to track.”

Also important to her childhood development was Hawtin’s time at Easter Seals camps. The 34-year-old credits her time at Easter Seals for helping her build relationships with like-minded individuals.

“It’s so important to find a place where you feel like you have meaning or fit in,” Hawtin explained. “I think Easter Seals is where a lot of people feel like they had a purpose. We could talk about things that your friends at school, when you’re really young, maybe they’re not relating to those same things, the same personal situations.”

Hawtin has returned to the Easter Seals camps as a mentor to share her experiences as a camper.

“It was so important to my development because I was able to go there and find and build relationships with people that I could relate to,” Hawtin said. “In my experience, I wasn’t able to participate in a lot of school activities at the time. They just weren’t allowing that. So going to Easter Seals camps, you were allowed to explore, and kind of see where you fit in and what you like and dislike, and you were allowed to be yourself.”

The Oakville, Ont. native was on the path for a promising career as a wheelchair racer when surgery forced her to put her racing career on hold.

At that point, Hawtin decided to take Chris Chandler, coach of the Burlington Vipers, up on his offer to try wheelchair basketball.

“Honestly, Chris is why I played basketball,” Hawtin said. “Since I was five, he was always bugging me to play basketball. Even at the age of 15-16, I was like, ‘No, I do track. I’m a track athlete.’ It’s very individual. It’s very different, and I’m a very shy person.

“Just trying to wrap my head around, ‘How am I going to interact with all these people on the court?’ was difficult. So finally, Chris got me to come out occasionally to help the club out because it’s very difficult to find numbers in sports in general, so I would have to help the basketball team out once in a while to play tournaments.”

It wasn’t until Hawtin was invited to try out for the women’s national team in 2014 that she envisioned herself having a wheelchair basketball career.

“In 2014, I was trying to find my place back in track because I had a surgery that had kind of put track on the back burner,” said Hawtin. “At that point, I just really didn’t know what I was going to do, and then I was invited to the tryouts, and they gave me carding, and I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ Honestly, during that meeting, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is an amazing opportunity that they have just given me.’

“From that point on, it was all about basketball. I didn’t look back to track at all.”

Nearly 10 years after first trying out for the women’s national team, Hawtin credits coach Mike Frogley for motivating her to stick with the game.

“Coach Frogley really changed my game completely, and I would not be the player I am today or the person I am today without him and his influence,” Hawtin said.