Adaptive Sports Reporting
Adaptive Sports New England has been providing a space for athletic excellence and youth participation for the past decade. Still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization has created new opportunities this past year with the inception of the Boston Strong beep baseball team and the New England Patriots wheelchair football team. I have had the pleasure to report on these teams and meet many wonderful people over the past few months. This page is dedicated to my coverage of disability sports which is often overlooked in our media landscape.
Patriot Wheelchair Football team provides community and compassion
Up two touchdowns with the clock ticking in the fourth quarter, the New England Patriots Wheelchair Football team awaited their first-ever program win against the Las Vegas Raiders on August 20.
The 37-year-old quarterback Vaughn Pfeffer, who suffered from an aortic dissection two years ago forcing open heart surgery and paralysis from the belly button down, couldn’t stop thinking to himself, “Don’t screw this up.”
Las Vegas scraped one touchdown back but the Patriots won 20-14 and would eventually take third place at their first USA Wheelchair Football League tournament.
Paralympic Gold to Patriots Red, White, and Blue
As a track and field star at Brockton High School, Joseph LaMar had just won the New England title for running the mile in 1990, but shortly after this achievement, he’d have his right leg amputated from the knee down due to a tumor.
Just two years later, he’d win gold at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona and has competed in at the highest level of multiple adaptive sports.
Vaughn Pfeffer: Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Rewards
Vaughn Pfeffer was on a lunch break at Planet Fitness in January of 2021 attempting to get his daily fix of exercise.
He’d finished a warm-up jog and made his way to the weight floor and laid out on a bench but when he tried to sit up, he would collapse due to an aortic dissection, a serious heart condition which forced immediate surgery and paralyzed him from the belly button down.
With no prior health concerns Pfeffer was thrown into shock following the life-altering injury, but it hasn’t stopped him from continuing his fitness journey, and over the past year competed on the highest levels of Wheelchair football.
Adaptive Sports Community Gives New Confidence to Wheelchair User
On a Thursday Night in Hartford, Connecticut, John Paul Jones was found in his 2013 Infiniti with multiple gunshot wounds that would paralyze him from the waist down.
Despite the effects it has had on his mental and physical strength, it opened the door to compete at the highest level of wheelchair sports.
Boston Strong: Beep Baseball For All
Matthew Debrigard, 14, plays all types of sports at the youth level, but all at a crucial disadvantage because of Stargardt’s disease—a condition that causes sensitivity to light and vision loss.
However, Debrigard has found solace and a starting role competing with adults on an all-inclusive beep baseball start-up team named Boston Strong.
George Kamara: Trailblazing, Campaigning, and Batting.
Before the crack of dawn on a 1991 morning, Liberian rebels raided George Kamara’s town in Sierra Leone. The Liberian native who moved across the border for safety from his war-torn country would be punished when the rebels used chemical gasses to impair his vision.
Kamara aimed to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities by campaigning for better programs and opening a school for the blind. Now at 62, he is as ambitious as ever graduating with a master’s degree and playing a new sport.
Mother & Daughter Duo Share the Beep Baseball Diamond
For eight-year-old Sanibel Davis, who was diagnosed with a rare condition hindering the attachment of her retinas, participating in Little League was a challenge.
Whether it was following the sound of her mother, Vicky Wu Davis, wearing a vibrant-colored vest around the field or attempting to track the dirty rubber baseball catapulted from the soft toss machine, there were many complications.
These issues isolated her with many of the other young ballplayers unable to understand the challenges she faced playing the sport.
However, Sanibel Davis found a new home in Boston Strong, an all-age inclusive beep baseball team in its first year of tournament play.
Norton Resident Represents MA. Twice Internationally
Beth Morley was having a conversation with a neighbor when she heard a splash from behind her. It was her four-year-old daughter Elise who had fallen in the pool and quickly began struggling.
After diving in to save her daughter, Morley knew she needed to send Elise to swim lessons to prevent any further incidents. Now 22, Elise Morley has competed in two Parapan American Games and with eyes set on qualifying for the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.
