3 Basketball Players Sue to Get Back Into Their Wheelchairs

All that Clayton Perry, his son Glenn and their friend Michael Horta want to do is play basketball. The problem is, some people say they are too fit.

The three have been suspended from play in the Southern California Wheelchair Basketball Assn. because association officials say they are not disabled enough. The Perrys and Horta, all from Redlands, play for the Redlands Eagles, and they say wheelchair basketball is the only sport they are capable of playing.

So Friday, they filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against both the Southern California Wheelchair Basketball Assn. and the National Wheelchair Basketball Assn. in an attempt to get back in uniform. The Southern California group is based in Orange County.

A court hearing has been set for Jan. 9 to determine whether the three can return to the team while their lawsuit is pending.

Injured in Military Service

“I’ve always been very active in athletics,” said Horta, 31, who was injured in a truck accident four years ago while he was in military service. “Wheelchair basketball is the only thing I can do now. If I lose this, it’s going to be hard on me.”

None of the three men regularly use a wheelchair. But Horta uses a cane, and the Perrys say they have difficulty walking. The three have already missed the first four games of the season because of the suspension.

The Redlands players claim they are the victims of politics.

The Casa Colina team first challenged the eligibility of the three Redlands players. The Casa Colina Commodores for years have been the top team in the league and are nationally known. The Redlands team was formed last year. As the Redlands players see it, they made a name for themselves by winning their division in a tournament in Canada last year, and they are viewed as a threat to Casa Colina’s dominance.

Disability Classes

But Frederick W. Kline, attorney for the Southern California Wheelchair Basketball Assn., and a wheelchair player himself, says he doesn’t believe that’s the case. It was the coach of the Casa Colina girls team who first noticed Glenn Perry and thought he was probably not adequately disabled to play in the league, Kline said.

In wheelchair basketball, players are classified either: I (severely disabled), II (primarily paraplegics who have full movement of the upper body) and III (those with less serious conditions but whose disabilities keep them out of regular sports). To have enough players to field teams in a league, all three classifications are mixed in the Southern California league.

The Perrys and Horta claim they were classified as III’s by a therapist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach. But therapists for both the Southern California and national basketball associations examined them and claimed they failed to meet the minimum standards for a III. The Perrys and Horta claim the national group refused to look at their medical records, and that the primary therapist for the regional group was biased because of her alleged association with the Casa Colina team.

Kline vehemently denies the therapist was anything but objective.

Sherry Perry’s Role

The one who actually decided to sue was Sherry Perry, Clayton’s wife, who is the president of the Redlands Eagles and a longtime wheelchair basketball fan.

Sherry Perry has four children involved in wheelchair basketball--three sons and a daughter. All, she said, suffer from hereditary muscular disabilities.

Her husband, 41, has had back surgery and continues to have back problems, unrelated to the children’s problems. One of the four sons has had both legs amputated.

“Wheelchair basketball is actually very exciting,” Sherry Perry said Friday. “It’s a shame when politics has to interfere with the fun.”

She claims her son Glenn, 18, was singled out because he proved to be the best player in the league.

Agrees on Prohibition

Glenn Perry said he feels he should qualify because his physical problems seriously affect his walking. But he agrees with Kline there’s a good reason for the rule prohibiting able-bodied players from being in the league.

“If you have full use of your legs, you have a lot more leverage in your (wheel) chair,” Glenn Perry said. “You can use your legs to push off, or to maneuver in the chair better.”

Kline, who plays for the Saddleback Gauchos, said he hopes that the controversy can be settled.

“The courtroom is really not the place to solve this,” Kline said.

Sherry Perry said she wants Horta and Glenn Perry returned to the team because that is only fair. But she admitted there’s another reason.

Horta and Glenn Perry, she said, are two of her starters.

“We need them in there,” she said. “We lost a game the other night by two points with them gone.”