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Well today is our third annual Detroit Invitational Classic sponsored by the Rehabilitation
Institute of Michigan and Athletes Unlimited. This is our third year. We're out here at
Beachwood Rec Center. Actually this year is our biggest tournament, our third, we have I
think, seventeen teams here from all over the nation, the US. And we're competing and having a
good time, so. This is our third annual it's a great day, a great weekend. We have teams from
Nashville, TN. We have a team from Indiana, Chicago, Bay City, which is Pennsylvania; we have
another team here from Michigan. The Motor City Firestorm. Just to name a few, like I said I
can't remember them because like I said we've got seventeen teams, so and Wisconsin. Crowd
noise. Well our tournament is just one, like I said, this is our third one but our team is
the Detroit Diehards. We travel across the country also too, so the other home cities, like we
go to Kentucky. They have the Bluegrass tournament. Chicago had their tournament. And we
usually just stay to the Midwest until we go to the nationals in April then all the teams go to
Colorado. Crowd noise. Just to thank all the people who bought sponsorship ads to helps us
raise funds to offset the costs that we had. We had a lot of people who bought ads. Ike,
which is a group athletic program that's just coming out. So many. But the rehabilitation
Institute of Michigan, that's my employer, a great place. I'm a former patient of RIM. I learned
a lot. I was there in 1988. Went through my Rehab and I was kind of in a low self esteem mode and
when I get out of there. How I got into sports was d=due to a friend Wesu Olusla. He passed
away in 2009 to bladder cancer. But a great man. A great mentor, he pulled me into the game. I
first came out I didn't play. I just watched it because I was hesitant. I was like I didn't
want to play basketball from a wheelchair. So that's what you get from a lot of people when
they first get injured. Some people don't want to hear about sports or anything. They just
want to know how they're going to be able to take care of their family, provide and be a better
person. And I let them know that sports is actually a gateway to being a better person, feeling
better about yourself. Your confidence shoots through the roof. You feel like you can do
anything and that's what basketball provides. So with me working at RIM. It's an honor
and it just helps people to adjust and know that they can live. Athletes Unlimited, great
program. They provide scholarships every year to students who are athletes and
they have to be a scholar, a good student in order to get this grant. So they help people
go to college. They sponsor a lot. They help athletes that are going t the Paralympics. Any
Michigan athletes that's trying to do something that needs help, Athletes Unlimited always,
always up to the task. Athletes Unlimited is a non-profit that was started by Dr. Jeff Pierce
and we support local athletes with disabilities and we support local sports teams within the
disabled community. Well it's important, I think to have event locally. Here in the
Metro-Detroit area we have a number of very talented wheelchair basketball teams. For
example, they travel, they're on the road all the time so I think it's great to put on a
tournament locally for them to participate and think we're fortunate here to have a number
of teams both at the Division Three level and at the junior level and I think it's great to
give them an opportunity to play in front of their fans and family members. Crowd noise.
This is my first year with the Diehards, I've been playing basketball for about nine years
total. I played with the Sterling Heights Challengers for the last eight years. Six over
the summer and hopefully I'll play with Diehards. I feel like it's more work I'm getting more
practice, it's like more intense and I love it. I'm learning a lot and I think it was a good
switch. I think we can do good. If we work as a team, talk, it's a five-man sport you have to
communicate, play as a team. It's not one person do it all. I'm excited. Looks like good
competition and fun day. I would like to have a couple of college teams that play wheelchair
basketball. I'm looking at the University of Illinois right now. I went top a couple of
camps, the coaches called me a couple of times and I'm a junior right now so next year I can
start applying and visiting and all that. I play Sled Hockey with the Michigan Sled Dogs.
I've been playing that for about four years. We're in a league where there are five teams. We
go to four different tournaments then we all play each other and then at the end of the season
whoever has the highest record goes onto Nationals and then plays the region. The best team
out of the different regions. It's all adults. We practice once a week on Sunday's at
Fraser Ice Rink and I love it. I like hitting people, like the speed just the intensity of it.
This is our third annual RIM AU Wheelchair Basketball Tournament. And we have
seventeen teams here, four juniors and thirteen adult in which it's one of the biggest
tournaments, just in our short period of time after three years, it's one of the biggest
tournaments in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association and I'm just very
happy, very proud and very excited. Well the first team I want to mention with the team I
played with years ago, that's, Music City and they are out of Nashville, Tennessee, so that
was quite a flight to get here, well not a flight, but just for a wheelchair basketball
tournament, where they had tournaments that were in the south in Birmingham, Alabama
that speaks volumes for us and that's why they're here just like some other teams from
Chicago, Illinois. Had a tournament there. We had several teams that had tournaments in
their hometowns but they wanted to come here to Southfield, Michigan and that makes us feel
real good. Well for one thing, when you have a disability there's some setbacks and
there's some mental situations that you have to go through, so wheelchair sports, not just
basketball but wheelchair sports as a whole, helps tremendously. First of all, physically it
helps you, mentally it is just such a self confidence booster that it, words can't even
express just how much that helps you mentally as far as participating in wheelchair