Article by madeleine zonana

POWER PLAY

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By Maddy Zonana

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t’s the last game of the tournament and the third game of the day for both the San Jose Rockets and the Sacramento Flames. The Flames are up by 1 and the Rockets are doing their best to catch up. The ball is at the end of the court near the Flames’ goal and one of their players kicks it out of bounds. The refs stop the game and set the ball on the box for a goal kick. One of the Rockets’ players zooms toward the ball, positions herself and spin-kicks the ball as hard as she can straight toward the goal. The Flames’ goalie and defender attempt to keep the ball out of the goal but the ball bounces in anyway. The Rockets players and fans in the stands cheer and the team circles around to their side of the court and clinks their guards together in celebration.

This is power soccer, the first team sport to use power wheelchairs and now one of two competitive sports that is meant for electric wheelchair users. The game is fairly similar to regular soccer in the way the players pass the ball and defend the goal. However, it is played in a gymnasium or on a basketball court by two teams of four. Players use powerchairs with metal guards attached to the front of

the chair that are used to hit an 18-inch, oversized soccer ball, according to the United States Power Soccer Association.

The game is accessible to players with a wide range of disabilities, creating a diverse community and giving participants new perspectives about their abilities as a person and team member.

San Jose, California, is home to three power soccer teams for kids and adults, called the

Steamrollers, the Rockets and the Flash. The original team, the Steamrollers, was created in the 1980s and was one of the founding teams in the United States. The Steamrollers are the most competitive of the three and the only conference or traveling team. They participate in many games and tournaments throughout the

year, including the Champions Cup National Tournament, a competition among all of the conference teams in the United States.

When that team got too big, the Rockets were created and, when they got too large, the Flash was created to allow for more individual player attention.

Both the Rockets and the Flash are less competitive, but still participate in many tournaments with other Northern California teams each year.

Many wheelchair sports, including power soccer, are important methods of exercise to people with disabilities since there are limited opportunities for them to be active. As Max Brown, a player for the Rockets, points out, “I can’t just go to a regular gym and use their equipment and whatnot because I’d either need assistance using the equipment, which isn’t always available, or the equipment is either too big or too heavy for me to use.”

As young children, most kids have access to a wide variety of after-school sports that are easy and convenient for them to practice. Kids with disabilities don’t have many types of sports that they can play and there are fewer teams which are more spread out, making it harder to set up regular competitions.

Another Rockets player, Bart Stawicki, points out that his friends, able-bodied kids, had sports teams at their public school with daily practices. He participated on a track team but practice was an hour away and was held only once a week.

Especially for people with severe disabilities, finding accommodating facilities is one of the biggest barriers

Connolly winds up to spinkick the ball

A History of the Game The game of power soccer first started in France. In 1978, the French created a sport called “football in electric wheelchairs,” a sport for young people who had severe disabilities and could not play other adaptive sports. A year later, Canada independently created its own sport called power soccer. For the next 25 years, the sport grew and expanded to other countries based off the French and Canadian models. In October 2005, the United States, Canada, Japan, England, Portugal, Denmark, Belgium and France held a conference and officially created Powerchair Football, as it is known internationally.

Two years later, the Federal Internationale de Powerchair Football Association held its first World Cup, in which those eight countries competed, according to the association’s website.

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to getting exercise, according to a 2013 study of power soccer players by J. P. Barfield and Laurie A. Malone in the Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development.

can have many disabilities such as quadriplegia, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy. Brown says this was one of the things that drew him to this particular

‘Before power soccer, I didn’t want to be associated with anyone with disabilities’

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The fact that people with many types and degrees of physical disabilities can play the game at an equal level makes power soccer distinct from other wheelchair or adaptive sports. In a lot of other sports that use manual wheelchairs, players still need a fair amount of strength or physical ability to be able to play at a competitive level.

Sports such as adaptive track require upper-body strength in order to push a manual chair around a track as fast a possible. Because of this, people with disabilities like spina bifida, who typically have full arm strength, are able to compete at a high level whereas people with disabilities such as quadriplegic cerebral palsy, whose whole body is affected, would have a hard time moving the chair fast enough. Because power soccer is played in electric wheelchairs, a person’s physical abilities do not dictate how well he or she can play the game. Power soccer players

game. “You get to see people with all different abilities, so there are people who are stronger, more able than you, people that are weaker or are less able than you,” he says.

“It just kind of puts your life in perspective, a little bit.”

Ryan Connolly, a current player for the Steamrollers and native of San Jose, first started playing power soccer for the Rockets when he was in third grade after a PE teacher told him about the sport. At the time, many of his friends were able-bodied boys who enjoyed playing games like normal soccer and chase. “He never was comfortable being in a wheelchair,” his mother, Chris Connolly, told the San Jose Mercury News. Today, Ryan Connolly is a star player on the Steamrollers and an assistant coach for the Rockets. He says playing power soccer has made him comfortable with his disability. “Before power soccer, I didn’t want to be associated with anyone with

disabilities, and power soccer taught me to open up more,” he says. Being on a team and playing a sport with other people with disabilities has made Connolly more accepting of himself and others like him.

Now as an assistant coach he is “trying to be dominant in every way and showing the people that as a coach I know this stuff.”

Power soccer “can change your perspective and the ability to actually go out and play and be active,” the coach of the U.S. national team, Chris Finn, told blogger Doug Oakley. Because it is a sport where people’s physical limitations have little effect on their ability on the court, it can help players recognize their strengths and feel good about what they can do.

“Being able to participate in something and really get good at something is a really great confidence builder,” says Stawicki.

In addition to attracting people with a diverse set of disabilities, power soccer draws people of all different ages. This allows the younger participants to meet older people whom they can identify with and look up to.

“Kids with disabilities don’t necessarily have a clear path to follow or a clear role model that they could look up to and say, ‘That’s who I want to be, right, and that’s what I

Connolly, who was once a Rocket himself, now assists the team with practice.

want to do,’” says Stawicki.

“I think just having those older mentoring generations in the sport is a huge kind of help.” When he was a child, Stawicki met older people with disabilities through wheelchair sports who were going to college and were successful.

These people showed Stawicki what was possible for him and he eventually went to college and now has a job in the technology industry.

Playing this team sport with people who all have some level of disability creates a supportive and

close community for the participants. “My team is basically my second family,” says Alicia Rix, a player for the Flash. For many players, being able to come together as a team has led to close friendships with people they can relate to. Stawicki and Brown first met when they were 5 and participated on an adaptive track team together.

“We have the same disability; we’ve been really close friends for our lives and we would have never met if not for track initially,” says Stawicki.

Without power soccer, he says,

“we probably wouldn’t have stayed as in touch.” These communities built in power soccer create friendships that are close and last for life. In Barfield and Malone’s study about the barriers and benefits of power soccer, participants said the biggest benefit of the game was “exercising lets me have contact with friends and persons I enjoy.”

“Power soccer—it means everything. I found something that I can do myself and I never had, you know,” says Connolly. “And a home— being home.”

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Works Cited “About USPSA.” United States Power Soccer Association, www.powersoccerusa.org/ page/show/1629510-about-uspsa. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

Almond, Elliott. “Wish Book: San Jose Rockets Power Wheelchair Soccer Team Loves to Compete.” The Mercury News, The Mercury News, 12 Oct. 2016, www.mercurynews.com/2012/12/12/wish-book-san-jose-rockets-powerwheelchair-soccer-team-loves-to-compete/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

Barfield, J. P., and Laurie A. Malone. “Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Devel opment (JRRD).” Perceived Exercise Benefits and Barriers among Power Wheelchair Soccer, Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, 2013, www.rehab.research.va.gov/jour/2013/502/barfield502.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

Brown, Max. Personal Interview. 12 March 2017.

Connolly, Ryan. Personal Interview. 4 March 2017.

Fipfa. “The History of the Development of Powerchair Football.” Fipfa.org, Fipfa Http://Fipfa.net/Fipfaorg/Wp-Content/Uploads/Sites/2/2015/01/fipfa_logo_ transparent_longueur_ipc_450-300x99.Png, 10 Jan. 2015, fipfa.org/histoiredu-developpement-du-powerchair-football/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

Oakley, Doug. “Wheelchair Soccer Coach Has a Mantra: You Are Able.” Story By Doug Oakley, Blogger, 1 Jan. 1970, dougoakley.blogspot.com/2011/03/youare-able-is-mantra-for-wheelchair.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

Rix, Alicia. Personal Interview. 18 March 2017.

“San Jose Rockets Power Soccer Home.” San Jose Power Wheelchair Soccer, www.sanjoserockets.com/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

“San Jose Steamrollers.” San Jose Steamrollers, 2017, www.sjsteamrollers.com/.

Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

Stawicki, Bart. Personal Interview. 18 March 2017.

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Maddy Zonana is a junior at Mountain View High School and Freestyle Academy where she studies film. Outside of school she does ballet at Pacific Ballet Academy and enjoys cycling with her family. Maddy is looking forward to her senior year at Freestyle and exploring her creative career.

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