Spinning Their Wheels : Bell-Jeff Can’t Keep Up in Exhibition Game Against Wheelchair Basketball Power Widney

The Bell-Jeff basketball players told Coach Eli Essa there was one team he had to schedule this season.

They hounded Essa, pleading for a rematch against a team that routed them last season.

They asked enough times that Essa relented.

On Wednesday, the Bell-Jeff players traded their ankle braces and high-tops for wheelchairs to take on Widney, the nation’s top-ranked junior wheelchair team, in a celebration of Handicap Awareness Month at Bell-Jeff.

“This is an important agenda in their basketball lives,” Essa said of his players. “It’s a reality check for them. They look at these kids and realize they are just like we are. They’re cool. The pleasure of doing this is not the pleasure of winning.”

That’s good for Bell-Jeff because Widney rolled to a 63-48 victory despite spotting the Guards 30 points. Widney has never lost to a high school team.

“This is good for us because we can show people that they aren’t the only ones capable of [doing] sports,” said Widney’s Willie Arriaga, 18. “Not all wheelchairs go home after school and do nothing.”

Widney is a special education school in Los Angeles. Most of the players on the team are amputees or accident victims and don’t require special education. But they play for Widney because their own schools don’t offer wheelchair basketball.

At Bell-Jeff, they entertained and educated the standing-room-only crowd.

The crowd howled in laughter at the humorous attempts of the Bell-Jeff players to keep up with their opponents--several players turning circles trying to play defense and others crashing to the floor as their wheelchairs tipped over.

They also gasped in amazement at the skills of the Widney players--running a full-court press, trapping and fast-breaking at every opportunity.

The halftime show consisted of the Widney cheerleaders, some on crutches and some in wheelchairs, waving pom-poms and pennants to the beat of rap music.

After the Bell-Jeff players were through, some teachers and administrators took to the chairs for a five-minute period. They did not score a point.

That’s pretty much how it goes at the several games Coach Les Hayes schedules against high school teams every year.

“They enjoy coming to play at high schools like this,” Hayes said. “I think they like to look at the girls.”

Several of the Bell-Jeff girls liked to look back, at least at one of the Widney players.

After the game, about 20 girls mobbed Arriaga and begged to have their picture taken with him. Arriaga happily obliged.

Maybe next year, it will be Arriaga who begs to play Bell-Jeff.