An article with the above headline was written by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Ben Steele and was first published in the Journal Sentinel. On July 3 the article was reprinted in USA Today. It’s found at this link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2022/07/03/wisconsin-whitewater-wheelchair-basketball-dynasty/7794751001/

Here are a few highlights:

“Wisconsin-Whitewater is home to one of the most dominant sports programs the state has ever seen.  

The Warhawks’ wheelchair basketball teams are national powerhouses, with the men and women combining for 16 championships since 1982. 

Whitewater players and alumni are heavily represented on Team USA for international competitions, including the upcoming International Wheelchair Basketball Federation America’s Cup in São Paulo, Brazil. That event, which begins July 9, is a qualifier for the world championships in November in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Whitewater prides itself on being one of the most wheelchair-accessible campuses in the nation. The men’s wheelchair basketball team started almost 50 years ago….

The National Wheelchair Basketball Association has 12 teams in its men’s intercollegiate division, including Illinois, Arizona and Alabama.

“I think it’s kind of cool to see these other big schools that offer these huge scholarships and have these big facilities and Whitewater is just kind of blue collar and people that want to work hard,” Boie said. [John Boie is a former wheelchair basketball player who is now an academic advisor at UW-W]  “If you want to get better, this is where you come to play against the best and to become the best.”

The women’s division includes six teams.

“I’m not really that old and the fact that I had to choose between really just one school that had an established women’s team about 20 years ago,” Schwab said, “And now women have the opportunity to choose between six universities and where they want to go.”

Editor’s note: The photo on the homepage is a UW-Whitewater photo.