They want to establish a competitive and recreational wheelchair basketball team that will hopefully have a coach and scholarships so they can compete with other universities that have this program.
“The eventual goal is to have at UNC varsity sports that are actually adaptive sports,” Nail said. “Things like wheelchair basketball, or perhaps wheelchair tennis, that would actually be full-on varsity sports that would be administered by the athletic director, or by the athletic department, but in order for that to happen, those have to be NCAA sports.”
Nail said he feels like the NCAA is moving toward including adaptive sports and he wouldn’t be surprised if we see this change in the next five years.
For their first event, Nail and Gin are holding a wheelchair basketball tournament this weekend in Woollen Gym.
The event is sponsored by the General Alumni Association and Bridge II Sports in Durham, which will be providing the equipment.
Gin, who was voted Mr. UNC in the fall semester, used his platform to initiate an adaptive sports program and hopes younger students will continue to push the effort forward. Gin said he grew up playing different adaptive sports and found there weren’t as many opportunities when he came to UNC.
“I really enjoyed the team sport aspect of adaptive sports growing up and I think that there’s limited opportunity for that here at Carolina,” he said. “Sort of reflecting on that made me think of how important a program like this could be for students like myself.”
Nail said the program is important to him particularly because of his sister, who has cerebral palsy. His sister learned to ride a bike through a program called “iCan Shine.”
