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Disabled Sporting Events Resources
This site was developed with the you in mind, as a place to find those hard to find resources that you need.
| Disabled Sports Resources |
Disabled Sports USA
A national nonprofit, 501(c)(3), organization
established in 1967 by disabled Vietnam veterans to
serve the war injured. DS/USA now offers
nationwide sports rehabilitation programs to anyone
with a permanent physical disability. Activities
include winter skiing, water sports, summer and
winter competitions, fitness and special sports
events. Participants include those with visual
impairments, amputations, spinal cord injury,
dwarfism, multiple sclerosis, head injury, cerebral palsy, and other
neuromuscular and orthopedic conditions.
 http://www.dsusa.org
Disabled Sporting 2001 Schedule of Events
View the 2001 Schedule
National Sports Center for the Disabled
by inMotion Staff Writers, Volume 10, Issue 2 March/April 2000
http://www.nscd.org
The bright, cold light of the morning sun on the snowy slopes of Winter Park clearly delineated each of the 23 amputee children waiting for their first ski lesson. Thirty years later,
Hal O'Leary, their professional ski instructor, still has vivid memories of that day. "I can still se their faces. Some of the kids especially the younger ones, were scared, others were
excited or nervous, and I was terrified of disappointing them as a teacher." His trepidation was justifiable as it was his first time teaching children with various levels of amputation to ski.
"In 1970, no specific method for teaching amputees to ski had been developed. I was in the dark just like everyone else," he explains.
As the morning passed, O'Leary realized as he watched his charges slowly take to the slopes that the bold and unusual notion of introducing amputee children to the pleasures of skiing was not
a foolhardy scheme. "There is no question that there were some bumps along the road, mainly tears and spills, but by afternoon that day I could tell just by looking at their faces that the kids were enjoying
themselves. The joy and sense of accomplishment they seemed to get from skiing - or trying to ski, made me realize that this was a very worthwhile project."
This realization fueled O'Leary as he struggled for the next 10 years to establish a ski program from people with disabilities. "Traditionally, skiing has been the sport of the 'beautiful,' able-bodied people.
So I encountered a great deal of elitist bias as well as prejudice and ignorance about disabilities whin I tried to set up and maintain the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) in Colorado."
O'Leary's brain child finally took off in the early 1980s. and since then there has been no looking back for this organization.
Today, NSCD serves a large and diverse population of people with physical and cognitive disabilities by offering a variety of adaptive recreation and sports activities. Among the summer sports and activities are:
baseball, mountain & tandem biking, camping, fishing, hand cycling, hiking, in-line skating, riding, rock climbing, sailing, and white-water rafting.
Winter sport offerings include: Snowboarding, snow shoeing, cross-country skiing, recreational skiing and competitive skiing. NSCD Winter Park is the site of two major ski competitions exclusively for the
disabled-the World Cup and the Wells Fargo Cup. It also hosts the Hartford Ski Spectacular, the Huntsman, Cup and the Columbia Crest Cup that allow disabled and able-bodied people to compete side by side.
The lifeblood of NSCD are its volunteers. Every year they provide lessons in adaptive sports and recreational activities to about 3,000 children and adults with disabilities. Today, there are 1,000 NSCD
volunteer instructors, including a number of volunteer high school student. In 1993, NSCD founded the "Ski Pals" program and invited high school students to train and volunteer as junior ski instructors for children with disabilities.
The Ski Pals program is unique in that it affords both able-bodied and disabled children the opportunity to interact and learn from each other about managing disability, while supervised by an adult ski instructor.
As part of its educational mission, NSCD offers annual formal training sessions and clinics for sports and recreation organizations interested in serving people with disabilities. In recent years, NSCD has
gone beyond the boundaries of the U.S. with its message about people with disabilities by collaborating with the Frank Foundation Child Assistance International (FFCAI), a Washington, D.C. based relief group that works exclusively
for disabled orphan children of Russia and its former republics.
In 1998, NSCD provided ski lessons to a group of visually impaired Russian orphans visiting the U.S., and in 1999, under the auspices of the Frank Foundation, three NSCD ski instructors traveled to the Caucasus
Mountains of Soviet Georgia to offer adaptive skiing lessons to Soviet Georgian children with disabilities, and to teach the ski instructors of the local resort about adaptive skiing techniques. NSCD also donated adaptive ski
equipment for people with disabilities to use in the future.
NSCD's growth over the past three decades, both nationally and internationally, has surprised its founder, Hal O'Leary, the most. "I just didn't expect it, but seeing how far we have come makes me very hopeful for the future."
For more information, contact:
NSCD
P.O. Box 1290
Winter Park, CO 80482
(970) 726-1540 or (303) 316-1540
E-mail: info@nscd.org
Web Site: www.nscd.org
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