{"id":4707,"date":"2019-07-09T14:23:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T19:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2019-07-09T14:24:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T19:24:39","slug":"heres-what-wheelie-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/2019\/07\/09\/heres-what-wheelie-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s What Wheelie Happened"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By: Shelby Berkemeier<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gogriffons.com\/\">Western athletes<\/a> gave up the use of their legs to face the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KCPredz\/\">Kansas City Predators<\/a>, a wheelchair basketball team, to raise money for Midwest Adaptive Sports (MAS).<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.midwestadaptivesports.org\/\">MAS<\/a> is a non-profit organization that uses competitive sports to help engage people with physical disabilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Western student Kevin Caldwell joined the MAS Predators basketball team in 2016. For his recreational sports class, they were tasked with raising money for a sport-related program \u2014 thus Griffs on Wheels was born.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Griffs on Wheels was a crowd-pleasing basketball game between the Predators and a mixed bag of Western athletes who volunteered to play in wheelchairs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">The wheelchairs seemed to pose quite a challenge for the Griffon athletes. Not only were their mobility and range of motion limited, but their shot was also falling short.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Western men\u2019s basketball player <a href=\"https:\/\/gogriffons.com\/roster.aspx?rp_id=3459\">Tyree Martin<\/a> was shocked to learn wheelchair basketball had different rules.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">\u201cWe didn\u2019t know you could hit people,\u201d Martin said. \u201cWe thought you just rolled around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Martin got a taste of the everyday struggles that paraplegic athletes face and came to appreciate the sport even more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">\u201cGetting up and down with those guys \u2014 with people less fortunate \u2014 than us was the best part of it,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Though the Griffon players may have felt outmatched, their efforts didn\u2019t go unnoticed \u2014 at least not by Caldwell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">\u201cIf they knew how to work the wheelchairs, it would be a dangerous game,\u201d Caldwell said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Caldwell\u2019s fundraiser came together and was even more successful than they\u2019d hoped.<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">\u201cWhat I enjoyed most was getting the kids involved,\u201d Caldwell said. \u201cI don\u2019t care if I ever score another point again, as long as I can be a part of making them happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"fm fn ct bg fo b fp kp fr kq kr ks kt ku kv kw fz\" data-selectable-paragraph=\"\">Griffs on Wheels was able to raise over $1,200 for MAS with the help of the Predators, Western athletes and the supportive crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Shelby Berkemeier Western athletes gave up the use of their legs to face the Kansas City Predators, a wheelchair basketball team, to raise money for Midwest Adaptive Sports (MAS). MAS is a non-profit organization that uses competitive sports to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":4708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[311],"tags":[352,719,718,717],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4709,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions\/4709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}