It was a level playing field.
The able-bodied got to see what it’s like to play wheelchair basketball and a host of other sports adapted for disabled people during Sports and Fitness For All Day at Sunset Park’s recreation center on Aug. 27.
The Parks Department hosted workouts and activities for physically and mentally disabled people, and invited the able-bodied to give them a shot, too. Most of the people who showed up had no impairments, and that’s a victory for the event, because the city is trying to encourage park-goers to play so-called “adaptive sports” in an effort to give handicapped folks more people to play with, a parks honcho said.
“It’s funny, because we had more children without disabilities playing adaptive sports than children with disabilities,” said Parks accessibility coordinator Christopher Noel. “That’s what we want to do — have sports where we can have able-bodied children participate with disabled children,” Noel said.
Participants got to try their hand at wheelchair basketball, adaptive Zumba, sit-down aerobics, stationary bicycles, and goal ball — a game where teams of blind or (blindfolded) people attempt to roll a bell-filled ball past one another, Noel said.
The Parks Department keeps adaptive sports equipment at certain recreation centers to encourage able-bodied people to fill out pickup games among the disabled, he said. And the Sunset Park Recreation Center will soon host power wheelchairs for folks who want to play soccer with folks who have mobility issues, he said.
Thursday’s event was one of many the department hosts to promote interest in adaptive sports, Noel said.
“We’re trying to show New Yorkers and people and parents of people with disabilities that we want to have inclusion in all the programming we do in parks,” he said.
