The History of Wheelchair Basketball by Justin Skinner

March Madness is on its way, and I’m here for it! This is when basketball teams really leave it all on the hardwood. The game is loved by many, including those with disabilities. Enjoy the perspective of our guest blogger Justin Skinner, as he tells us all about wheelchair basketball and his love for the sport. - Shari

Wheelchair basketball first came about because of an increased number of individuals who became physically disabled during World War II. It was designed to both rehabilitate and socialize veterans.

The original concept of “wheelchair basketball” was more an adaptation of “netball” with wheelchairs, conceived in 1944 by German British neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann. Netball is like basketball in that both have the objective to score points by shooting a spherical ball through a hoop 10 feet high on similar courts. However, netball differs from basketball primarily in that there is no dribbling in netball, and players must pass or shoot the ball within a very short time after catching it, depending on their position; only the Goal Shooter and Goal Attacker positions are allowed to attack the hoop to score, whereas, in basketball, any player on the floor can attempt to score. In netball, the ball is also smaller than a basketball, and the hoop doesn’t have a backboard.

The first “games” event for wheelchair sports was organized by Guttman in 1947 as the Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Games. In 1989, this event would evolve into what is now known as the world governing body, the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation. The IWBF has over 100 member countries and is officially recognized by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).

Another organized body for athletes with disabilities that branched off from the Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Games was the Paralympic Games. While the first modern-day Olympic Games occurred in 1896, the first Paralympic Games weren’t until the 9th annual Stoke Mandeville Games, which would retroactively be called the 1960 Summer Paralympics, which took place in Rome, Italy, shortly after the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Here in the United States, American World War II veterans began playing the sport in 1946. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign spearheaded the movement in America, led by fellow war veteran Dr. Tim Nugent. Though Dr. Nugent had not personally sustained a war-related injury, he hated how his battle buddies with disabilities were shunned in public and frequently given grim outlooks on life. He sought to change those attitudes and circumstances quickly using sports.

In 1949, Dr. Nugent founded the National Wheelchair Basketball Association and was the league’s first commissioner, serving for 25 years. Today, the NWBA has over 200 teams across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and eight divisions: Junior Prep (13 years of age and under), Junior Varsity (high school age), Women’s Division (all ages--primarily adults), Men’s and Women’s Intercollegiate Divisions (post-high school age), and Coed Divisions I, II, and III (all ages--primarily adults), with Division I being the highest level of talent and skill in the NWBA.

At every level (except for Junior Prep), every wheelchair basketball athlete gets classified for their abilities on the court, on a 4.5-point scale. Each team cannot exceed a combined 15 classification points on the court at any given moment. This is to limit stacking ability, and thus, talent with athletes who have impeccable trunk control, like single amputees, against a team with less ability, like quadriplegics. As someone with Spina Bifida (L3-L5) and who is semi-ambulatory, my classification is 3.0.

I played wheelchair basketball from the age of four to 25. I started out playing recreationally in Dayton through an organization for all abilities called Just for Kids. We met up at a local elementary school every Wednesday. When I first played, I didn’t have the strength to make a basket in the makeshift 5-foot-tall hoop attached to a movable pole originally intended for a volleyball net. I also had a basic, everyday wheelchair that wasn’t intended for competition. A few years passed, my strength increased, and I was gifted with my first sports wheelchair.

I played with the Just for Kids group until the 8th grade, when I learned about a Junior Varsity team in Fort Wayne, Indiana, through the Turnstone Center for Children’s and Adults with Disabilities. There, I played competitively for the Turnstone Flyers and traveled across the country as a part of the NWBA. During the season, we would have a five-hour practice every other Saturday. That was the only period in my growing-up life that I looked forward to getting up at 5:30 a.m. to travel two and a half hours with my dad for basketball practice.

By my freshman year of high school, I became skilled enough that, even though I was by no means the star, I regularly started games and had significant playing time. After graduating from high school in 2014, I chose to go to college at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne in Indiana. There, I played briefly for a non-NCAA-sanctioned wheelchair basketball team, the IPFW Adaptodons (now the Fort Wayne Mastadons). Because that team was fairly new, we didn’t have enough athletes with disabilities to field a team, so I had some able-bodied teammates whose classifications were the maximum 4.5.

After a few years in the Summit City, the club team folded due to a lack of athletes, so I transferred my studies to the University of Cincinnati played for a Division II team there, the Cincinnati Royals, until the 2020 season concluded.

With March Madness here, the NCAA’s Wheelchair Basketball Division will be having its Men’s and Women’s 2026 National Championship from April 1-4, hosted by the University of Arizona. The Women’s tournament will include four colleges: the University of Alabama, the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois, and the University of Texas-Arlington. The Men’s tournament will consist of 12 colleges: the University of Alabama, the University of Arizona, Auburn University, CUNY, Eastern Washington University, Edinboro University, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of Missouri, Southwest Minnesota State University, the University of Texas-Arlington, and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

You can find more on the other six divisions’ 2026 National Championship Tournaments at https://www.nwba.org/nationals.