Athletes Get on a Roll at Wheelchair Sports Camp

Jennifer Updegraff can’t run down a basketball court, dribble between her legs or make a jump shot. But when it comes to wheelchair basketball, Updegraff is a star.

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For one week each summer, at a Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp in Simi Valley, Updegraff and a dozen other young people compete wheel-to-wheel in rigorous daily activities, including basketball, swimming, archery, tennis, Ping-Pong and floor hockey.

At week’s end, all campers receive prizes: T-shirts, tennis rackets or specially designed wheelchair backpacks. The best could earn a chance to face off against the top wheelchair athletes in the world in the Paralympics, an international competition for wheelchair athletes that will next be held in Atlanta in 1996.

“I really love it,” said Updegraff, 23, who has cerebral palsy. “I get out of the house and do something, meet people, feel good.”

The camp draws youths and young adults from throughout Southern California, ranging in age from 8 to 25. It is on the east end of Simi Valley in the sprawling back yard of Ingrid Cleffi-Hayes, a physical therapist who helped found a similar camp at Cal State Northridge.

Cleffi-Hayes launched the mini-camp last summer to supplement the Northridge program. Both are geared toward youths with muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and other spinal cord injuries.

“Kids with mental disabilities have the Special Olympics, but there just isn’t as much around for kids who are physically disabled,” Cleffi-Hayes said. “I want to give these kids as much of a chance as possible to challenge each other and compete.

“A lot of times if somebody sees a kid sitting in a wheelchair drooling they automatically assume the kid is mentally retarded,” Cleffi-Hayes said. “All you have to do is see these kids at camp and you know that’s just not true.”

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In Ventura County, nearly 30,000 residents have a disability that limits their mobility, but no numbers are available for those in wheelchairs, said Terry Dryer, coordinator of the county’s Americans With Disabilities Act program. And nationwide, more than 10 million people rely on wheelchairs to get around, according to the National Wheelchair Athletic Assn.

Campers pay $150 for a week of camp that actually costs about $350 per participant, Cleffi-Hayes said. Funding from state and federal grants and corporate sponsors pays the difference.

A donation last summer paid for a $10,000 concrete basketball court in Cleffi-Hayes’ back yard. Her goal is to expand the program--now offered for two weeks each summer--to have activities at her home year-round.

Almost all of the camp staff are volunteers, including Cleffi-Hayes. “Ideally, I’d like to pay everyone, but I just don’t have the money,” she said.

Instead, Cleffi-Hayes pays gas expenses and coaxes wheelchair manufacturers to donate parts she can pass along to her staff. The camp counselors also are wheelchair-bound.

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Counselor Bobby Rohan said being in a wheelchair makes it easier for campers to relate to him.

“They look at me and they know that I have been through what they are going through,” said Rohan of Northridge. “I think they respect me more because of it.”

On Monday morning, basketball was first on the camp agenda, and Updegraff quickly got the ball.

With a push from a counselor, Updegraff’s chair squealed down the court, using bumper-car tactics to dodge a tangle of spinning, screeching opponents. Coaches hollered and fans cheered as Updegraff neared the basket.

Suddenly a chair toppled in her wake, slamming its occupant onto the concrete court and momentarily halting the game.

As the action resumed, Updegraff slid up to the basket--a large plastic trash barrel positioned beneath the hoop. With a determined grimace she stuffed the ball.

As onlookers, teammates and opponents cheered, Updegraff grinned from ear to ear.

FYI

For more information about the Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp, call Ingrid Cleffi-Hayes at 581-2897.