Area Athletes Compete in Wheelchair Games

This week’s national wheelchair competition has given disabled veteran Larry Foster something new to shoot for.

Foster, 38, of Arleta, won a gold medal in the air rifle competition at the 17th National Veterans Wheelchair Games held this week in San Diego. He was one of five Valley disabled veterans to compete in the four-day event that attracted more than 500 athletes from 40 states, Puerto Rico and Great Britain.

John Schaefer, 69, of San Fernando won a bronze medal in the quadriplegic weightlifting competition. Richard Pugh, 61, of North Hills, Scott Zemer, 38, of Van Nuys and Howard Haller, 51, of Santa Clarita also participated in sports such as softball, bowling, track, swimming and rugby.

“The obstacle course is really, really tough--it’s the course from hell,” Foster said. “It’s like the [extreme] games but for wheelchairs.”

After Foster, an amputee who uses a wheelchair, was disqualified from the obstacle course for falling off a ramp and lost in wheelchair basketball, he said he knew the air rifle competition was his last chance to take home a prize.

Now Foster said he hopes to join a group of disabled veterans who regularly play wheelchair basketball in Long Beach and wants to qualify for the 2000 ParaOlympics in Sydney.

“It was the first time I ever felt worthy,” he said of the games. “I always felt my disability was a big disadvantage for me. This is the first time I felt my disability was a plus for me, that I counted for something.”

In addition to the competition, the games often bring long-lost friends together.

Haller, a retired Navy veteran, said a few years back a man recognized the tattoo he has on his arm. Haller had pulled the man out of the water in Vietnam.