Wheelchair Sports Camp Opens at CSUN

Jade Hogan has a challenging week ahead of her--she’ll receive instruction in archery, basketball, badminton, tennis, swimming and track. Plus, the 12-year-old has to find time to meet up with all her friends.

Normally, Jade’s mother provides her schooling at home because Jade is a paraplegic.

However, once a year, she participates with youngsters like herself in the Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp at Cal State Northridge, the only sports camp of its kind in Los Angeles. The camp opened Monday and continues through Friday on the CSUN campus.

Marking the ninth year of the wheelchair camp, this year’s enrollment boasts 35 campers, ages 8 to 18, who come from as far south as Compton and as far north as Modesto and San Luis Obispo.

The camp, sponsored by Cal State Northridge, is funded mostly through private grants and donations.

Funding for the wheelchair camp has dwindled since its inception, said Ingrid Cleffi-Hayes, president of Adaptive Sports & Recreation, who spends all year trying to raise the money needed to keep the program going.

The camp previously was sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Foundation and the National Wheelchair Tennis Foundation. But now it relies on volunteer help from all of its staff.

Although each child costs $350 to provide instruction, transportation and lunch, the camp only charges $150.

“It’s a unique camp in that all of the instructors have had some kind of disability that they’ve overcome,” said camp coordinator Nick Breit.

Breit and Cleffi-Hayes are especially excited about their aquatics program, which teaches the youngsters to swim.

Children who attend the sports camp are all at different levels of athleticism, according to Breit.

“Some of these kids really belong here. They are studlings,” said Breit. “Their upper extremities are really well developed and they’re fast.”

However, the philosophy of the summer program promotes that “if they can do a couple of the events, it makes the camp worth it,” Cleffi-Hayes said.

Fifteen-year old Ted Newman, a first-time camper, said he enjoys the variety of sports offered.

“I like everything,” said Ted, who during the regular school year trains with the track team at his high school.

Norm Mitchell, a tennis instructor, said he wants to show the youngsters that “the only disability they have is the one they put on themselves.”

He said he has found that many of the kids haven’t challenged themselves because of their parents “who kind of coddle them.”

“We have a good time with the kids and they go home to tell their parents, ‘Wow! I can do this,” said Bobbie Rohan, a track coach who wants to see his campers enjoy themselves, as well as learn a sport.

“It’s cool!” said 12-year-old Emanuel Lin of the camp. Lin hopes to compete in swimming some day and says he likes the camp mostly “ ‘cause you make new friends and see old friends who go to other schools.”