Diversity Includes Disability: Perspectives on the U-M Council for Disability Concerns
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Events Held during the Council’s Investing in Ability Series
The Army-Navy Wheelchair Basketball Game
As a very festive, celebratory part of our annual Investing in Ability program, usually scheduled as the final event, every fall since 2009 the council has presented a Wheelchair Basketball Game (see Photos 7 and 8). This sports event started out very humbly in the local high school gym with few spectators and not much fanfare; however, every year it becomes more well attended and well known with additional attractions and a larger, more enthusiastic audience, having developed into a well-loved standard. All due credit for this exciting event goes to Gerald Hoff who has initiated and organized this annual event and who has worked to inspire more and more participants every year. The purpose of the game is to honor veterans, both student-veterans and others in the community, as well as inviting people with physical challenges and providing a showcase for the skills of our wheelchair athletes. The U-M Dance Team takes part along with the U-M Cheerleader Team and the U-M Tri-Service Color Guard. The 338th Army Band plays and there is additional appropriate marching music. The Honorary Marshalls through the years have included such dignitaries as Congressman John Dingell, Ron Warhurst, Robert McDivitt, Mike Lantry, and Ted Spencer. The players have included Paralympian Paul Schulte and numerous other athletes, both expert and new wheelchair users.
Because of the popularity of the Council’s Army-Navy Wheelchair Game, an additional wheelchair game was held at Saline High School Auditorium in Saline, Michigan, in 2016, by special request of their teachers and students. The Detroit Diehard team members and other wheelchair champions are seen in the front row with US Naval officers behind them. Future games may also be held at Dexter Schools and at Eastern Michigan University (see Photo 9).
Photos 7a-d: Scenes from Army-Navy Wheelchair Games Held in U-M’s Crisler Arena
Selection of Some of the Keynote Speakers at Earlier Investing in Ability Events
John Hockenberry, NBC news correspondent, two-time Peabody Award Winner, paraplegic since auto accident at age 19.
Richard Pimental, nationally known speaker on disability management, worker’s compensation, rehabilitation, cost containment and interpersonal relationships in the workplace; lost hearing during the Vietnam War and developed tinnitus as a result.
Chris “Crazy Legs” Fonseca, comedian who has cerebral palsy.
Victor J. Strecher, speaker/author of “On Purpose: Lessons in Life and Health from the Frog and the Dung Beetle,” deeply affected by loss of his daughter to heart disease.
Paul Coehlo, US Congressman and chief architect of the ADA federal legislation passed in 1990, consciousness about disability raised by a fall that caused his epilepsy.
Richard Bernstein, Michigan Justice of the Supreme Court, born visually impaired.
