Eastern\u2019s wheelchair basketball team was founded in 2020 with the support of community partners like ParaSport Spokane and the Neilsen Foundation. With head coach David Evjen leading the way, EWU\u2019s co-ed team played its first games in 2020 and soon became sanctioned by the National Wheelchair Basketball Association \u2014 the first team to earn that distinction in the Western region. More recently, the Eagle\u2019s program marked another milestone by hosting what Evjen hopes will become an annual wheelchair basketball tournament at EWU\u2019s Reese Court. The event included three visiting teams, included a group from the University of Arizona along with local teams ParaSport Spokane and, the eventual champion, Team St. Luke\u2019s.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Because wheelchair basketball games are regularly played in recreation centers, the opportunity to play the sport in a bigger arena was welcome, says Eastern\u2019s coach Evjen. \u201cThat was a big plus for this tournament.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Another plus involved the event\u2019s visibility, which included news coverage from a number of regional media outlets. \u201cI think this could help with recruitment a lot, especially with athletes from our close neighboring states, like Oregon, Idaho, and even Nevada and Utah,\u201d Evjen says.<\/span><\/p>\n There were also important financial benefits, he adds. Because collegiate wheelchair basketball teams are spread out across the United States \u2014 with the teams as far away as New York and Alabama \u2014 getting in a full season of 25 or so games can strain travel budgets. To offset costs and improve competition, most programs try to host one annual tournament where teams can get in multiple games.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Evjen says a core of dedicated volunteers also helped provide logistics support, score keeping and other key functions. \u201cIt takes a lot of moving parts to be able to host a tournament like this,\u201d he says, but all the hard work paid off. \u201cThere was a big crowd here, and we really got to show them what wheelchair basketball is all about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In October, Eastern hosted the first of what it hopes will become an annual wheelchair basketball\u00a0 event. Since its beginnings as a form of recreation for injured veterans returning from World War II, wheelchair basketball has been among the most popular \u2014\u00a0and competitive \u2014 of sports enjoyed by people who use wheelchairs.\u00a0 Eastern\u2019s wheelchair basketball…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-1633","stories","type-stories","status-publish","hentry","stories_categories-campus","stories_categories-giving","stories_categories-students"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1782,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1633\/revisions\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/01\/Adaptive-Basketball-scaled.jpg\")