Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports USA
At a glance
- Category
- Recreational Sports & Activities
- How it's listed
- Found in our own research. Its site was confirmed live and serving the military community on . That is a check that it exists, not a judgement that it is good.
- Website
- www.wasusa.org
About Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports USA
Published by Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports USA on their own website. Quoted here in full as they wrote it.
Mission Statement
The mission of Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports, USA is to provide multi-sport and recreation opportunities for individuals with a disability by facilitating, advocating, and developing a national community-based outreach program, providing resources and education, conducting regional and national competitions, and providing access to international competitions in conjunction with the International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation.
History
Founded in 1956 as the National Wheelchair Athletic Association, the name of the organization was changed in 1994 to Wheelchair Sports, USA, and again in 2009 to Wheelchair & Ambulatory Sports, USA to better reflect the organization's mission and goals. The initial impetus to organize Wheelchair Sports, USA, grew out of the interests of athletes with disabilities - many of whom were veterans of World War II. They wanted to participate in sports other than basketball, which had seen rapid growth in the early 1950's through teams sponsored by veterans hospitals and other rehabilitation agencies. General Omar N. Bradley was one of the leaders of the early efforts to develop wheelchair sports programs, principally for servicemen injured during the war. In the early days, many wheelchair basketball players saw participation in individual wheelchair sports as supplementary training for their primary interest in basketball. However, the WASUSA program appealed to even greater numbers of athletes with disabilities because it was able to incorporate women and quadriplegics (those with paralysis in upper as well as lower extremities); two populations that basketball could not reasonably accommodate at the time. Europe's first organized wheelchair sports program was introduced in 1948 by well-known neurosurgeon, Dr. Ludwig Guttman, founder of the Spinal Injury Center in Stoke-Mandeville, England. The first Stoke-Mandeville Games included only a handful of participants (26), and few events (shot put, javelin, club throw, and archery), but growth in both the number of events and participants came quickly. In 1952, a team from the Netherlands was invited to compete with the British team. This was the first International Stoke-Mandeville Games, an event that has been held annually ever since.
The Early Years
Our write-up
Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports USA is in our directory because we went looking for resources in this category and confirmed theirs is real and serving this community. What you see above is their own description, quoted from their site. We have not yet added our own write-up — the programs, eligibility and military fit that we check ourselves — and we would rather leave that blank than guess at it.
In the meantime, their official site is the authority: www.wasusa.org
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This page is maintained by MILCONNECT.AI and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authored by Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports USA. It is a directory entry compiled from community recommendations. We do not rate, rank or endorse anything in this directory, and being listed here is not a recommendation — clinical or otherwise. We are not a medical provider and cannot tell you whether a program is right for you. Check eligibility, cost and current status with the organization directly before you rely on it.