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April 1995 |
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April 1995 |
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Dan Schaeffer
Editor's note:
Youth sports hold a position in American family life that certainly wasn't there
when I was growing up. My kids play soccer, football, baseball, run track and
cross country. What's significant is that, like many of their friends, they've
been involved in organized sports since age 4 or 5. We've included this article in
a Tapping Technology looking at assistive technology and family life because, as
Dan Schaeffer's heartquickening sports prose so aptly evidences, youth sports
are in the province of everyone!
Another winter has passed and we watched all the college bowl games, the not so Super Bowl, and pigskin diehards even caught the Pro Bowl. With all that football available, there is one game you probably missed, the Bennett Bowl. The Bennett Bowl is played a little bit differently. You won't see a tight end (or any other player) running down the field since the players don't run, they roll!
This is electric football, electric wheelchair football, played in the gym of the Bennett Institute in Baltimore. As one might imagine, some rules of the game are different than in old fashioned football. The receivers who use electric wheelchairs only need to be hit with the ball to count as a reception, a lot of those Stan Humpheries passes in the Super Bowl would have racked up some points so the Chargers might've covered the spread. A foam football is used so it's not as bad as it sounds. The quarterback on each team uses a manual wheelchair and can't be sacked. Also, there are only three downs, like in the Canadian Football League. First downs are made by advancing the ball ten feet.
The defensive players tackle by making contact with an offensive player's wheelchair. Make no mistake, though, this is a full contact sport. Most of the time, the defensive player just taps the ball carrier with his wheelchair, but sometimes the only way to stop someone from scoring a touchdown is to hit Œem hard enough to rattle their bearings.
This year, the playoffs ended with the last place team, Wheels of Terror, playing the first place Bombers for the championship in the Bennett Bowl. The Terror played a good defensive game, effectively controling the Bomber offense. Spreading out, they didn't leave any gaps for the Bomber's two fastest players, Lance Fallon and Justin Rosenfeld to go through. On offense, their quarterback looked like Steve Young, going for short yardage and eating up the clock. Tom Bailey was a combination Jerry Rice and John Taylor, catching several passes for big yardage. However, the Bombers were up to the challenge. They were hungry for the championship and it showed in how they played, scoring three touchdowns. The score was tight through the whole game with the competitive spirit between both teams running high. With three minutes left in the game, however, the Bombers were still down by less than six points. With a touchdown they could regain the lead and possibly win the game. They zoomed down the field on several plays to the ten yard line. It was third and goal with only a minute left. If they didn't score the touchdown. the other team would take over. The ball was put into Lance's hands to try a run for the TD. He moved right, then left, and back to the right again. As the seconds ticked down, he saw a hole in the right corner of the endzone. He raced for the gap in high gear but a Terror defensive player beat him to it and forced him out of bounds inches from the goal line!
The Wheels of Terror took over with seconds left and ran down the clock to win the game. The unexpected had happened and, unlike the Chargers, the last place team beat the first place team for the championship. It was an example of how strategy, and not just speed and power can make the difference in the game of football.
P.S. from the Editor
With all this bone crunching action, thank goodness we were all able to work
together to get the Motorized Wheelchair Warranty Enforcement Act passed last
year.
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