Wheelchair basketball at Northwestern has been a long time in the making, according to Alec Cabacungan (Medill ’24), who recently realized a longtime dream of bringing the sport to his alma mater and is now in the process of starting his own nonprofit. The first ever wheelchair basketball event was held this past Saturday.
Sam Milgrom, who is the director and co-founder of the wheelchair basketball team, has been working to make this team a reality since he first met Cabacungan five years ago.
“When (Cabacungan) was a freshman here, I was his advisor for academic accommodations in the classroom at AccessibleNU,” Milgrom said. “I found out that my middle school friend is the head coach at Michigan for the wheelchair basketball program, and I was like, ‘I need to start one,’ so through rec sports and connecting with Alec, we were able to do this.”
The event was one of what the pair hopes will be quarterly pickup games this year. Staff from the Title IX office, members of the NU Women’s Club Basketball Team and various other students and community members, many of whom — other than Cabacungan and Milgrom — had no prior experience with the sport, attended the event.
Despite being traditionally recognized as a sport for those with physical disabilities, the games were open to all. Prior skills and experience with traditional basketball were not needed and largely failed to translate to the new format.
“It’s a lot different. I think it takes more skill, honestly, to be able to move in the wheelchair and also shoot, but it’s a lot of fun,” said McCormick senior and member of the Women’s Club Basketball team Amanda Benjamin.
The addition of the wheelchairs seemed to serve as an equalizer for all levels of basketball talent, Milgrom said, aside from Cabacungan, who has been playing the sport since he was 12 years old.
Cabacungan taught everyone in attendance the basic rules of the game as well as how to effectively maneuver in the wheelchairs. All wheelchairs were donated to NU by the Chicago Skyhawks, a youth wheelchair basketball organization run by the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Chicago Park District.
Cabacungan’s quest to play youth sports years ago propelled him into the wheelchair basketball space.
“(Growing up), I was one of the only students in a wheelchair. I could never play sports, so my mom and I looked everywhere in Chicago for a wheelchair basketball team, and we found that the Chicago Park District had their own wheelchair basketball team,” Cabacungan said. “When I went to Northwestern, there wasn’t an opportunity to continue playing, so it’s really fun to be able to come back as an alumnus and introduce the game to more students.”
As Cabacungan had hoped, more than enough students showed up to stir some competition, most of whom had no prior experience in a wheelchair.
(Photo courtesy of Julie Lucas)
Despite the University’s best efforts, Medill graduate student Kevin Lu said administrators have a ways to go to make NU a fully inclusive and accommodating campus.
“If you think about the school’s accessibility, it’s been doing well, but there’s always room to improve,” Lu said. “I think this is a really good event for getting people without disabled backgrounds to know how hard it is.”
For Benjamin, accessibility in practice has a far greater impact than it does in theory or conversation.
Understanding what can be done to improve accessibility throughout different spaces is far different than being an active part of the solution, Benjamin explained.
“Being able to try this out gives people who are able-bodied like myself a different perspective,” Benjamin said. “I’ve taken classes about it before, so I think I have a general understanding of how to make the world more accessible, but it’s cool to actually be in it and get to try it out.”
For Milgrom and Cabacungan, the end goal is to have a full-fledged adaptive sports program. Many schools, like the University of Michigan, have well-developed programs that the two are looking to model NU’s after.
Cabacungan’s work toward accessibility goes much further. He is widely involved in nonprofit advocacy work for those with disabilities.
“I hope to be more of an advocate for wheelchair accessibility,” Cabacungan said. “While I was a student at Northwestern, there were a lot of academic buildings that weren’t wheelchair accessible, but I hope to make a lot of changes not only to Northwestern, but to other people who need more assistance.”
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