Students playing wheelchair basketball pickup games. Photo courtesy of Terry Hunsicker.
UTampa students learned and participated in various adaptive sports ranging from wheelchair basketball to archery.
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By Terry Hunsicker
TAMPA, Fla. — The University of Tampa hosted a Paralympic sports day on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025.
Held across campus throughout the day, participants were given brief lessons on an adaptive sport by para-athletes before getting to play the respective sports themselves.
“You get to hear the cheering and the excitement, and that, that speaks volumes”, said Jason Rabe, an assistant professor at UTampa who was a key organizer of the event.
Rabe teaches ESC-400, Physical Education and Fitness for Special Populations. He says one goal of hosting the Paralympic sports day is to eventually have a dedicated adaptive sports team on campus.
“If we have the opportunity to pull in more students that use wheelchairs to walk, we could provide also sports for them as well,” said Rabe.
The event was hosted by the Office of Access and Community Programs through partnerships with UTampa’s Department of Health Sciences and Human Performance, as well as the Tampa Bay Strong Dogs wheelchair basketball team and Hillsborough County Adaptive Sports.
The Hillsborough County Adaptive Sports program is home to the Tampa Bay Strong Dogs and is headquartered in the Lesley “Lis” Miller Jr. All People’s Community Park and Life Center. The All People’s Life Center hosts a variety of programs and resources assisting those with disabilities. As part of Rabe’s class, students visit the center to play wheelchair basketball.
Participants attending the Paralympic events on Friday could choose between two sports every two hours, beginning from 10 a.m. and lasting until 6 p.m. Archery and wheelchair football began at 10 a.m., wheelchair tennis and powerlifting at 12 p.m., sitting volleyball and swimming at 2 p.m., and finally wheelchair basketball and goalball at 4 p.m.
Archery was held in a small field adjacent to the lacrosse field, powerlifting was held underneath the Pepin Stadium bleachers, and wheelchair tennis was held at the tennis courts near the west parking garage. Swimming was held at the campus pool. Sitting volleyball and goalball clinics were held at the Cass Gymnasium, and both wheelchair basketball and football were conducted at the campus basketball courts.
Coaching each event were athletes with experience in their respective sports. Some of these coaches included names like Tracy Otto, a UTampa alumna archer who competed in the Paris Paralympic Games, and Will Curtis, who is a member of the men’s national sitting volleyball team.
Otto was part of the archery clinic alongside her fiancé, Rick Riessle, and 10-month-old daughter Riley. Riessle, who handles Otto’s archery equipment for competition, assisted people in learning how to fire a bow and arrow.
“The fact that people are interested and want to see how we do things and what we’re doing is so amazing,” said Otto. “It shows that we’re making an impact.”
At the wheelchair tennis event, attendees were taught the basics of how to move in a wheelchair by playing the game of sharks and minnows before pairing off on the courts. At powerlifting, students were introduced to the specialized benches that powerlifters use, and at the sitting volleyball clinic, students practiced passing the ball between each other before lining up to play a King of the Hill-style game as teams.
Curtis, who recently played in the 2025 Sitting Volleyball World Cup, said that it is great to see people trying out Paralympic sports.
“You can say I sat down and did that, gave it a try, and wow, I respect those athletes for what they’re doing, because it is harder than it looks,” said Curtis.
Rounding out the day’s events were clinics on wheelchair basketball and goalball. Goalball is a sport for the visually impaired played on a court with a ball containing bells so the athletes can hear the ball. For goalball, participants were given knee and elbow pads as well as eye shades. Split into three groups, the groups rotated around the Cass gymnasium learning how to handle the ball, how to shoot, and how to block shots.
For basketball, attendees ran drills to learn how to quickly start and stop while in a wheelchair and shoot while sitting down before splitting into four different teams to play pickup games.
Several current and former members of the Tampa Bay Strong Dogs wheelchair basketball team participated in and helped throughout the event. Workers from the All People’s Life Center also assisted. Carlos Quintanilla, an assistant coach with the team, lobbed passes over players’ heads on the basketball courts. Cliff McDowell, a member of the first iteration of the Strong Dogs who retired from the team in 2015, said he was asked to help at the event. He said events like these are great opportunities for community outreach.
Friday’s events weren’t the first time the Strong Dogs visited UTampa. As recently as March 31, 2025, the Strong Dogs had been invited to play and showcase wheelchair basketball. This semester, the visit expanded into a multi-sport event.
“Based on the strength of and the success of those events, we decided that we needed to step it up,” said Rabe.
Pat Williamson, director of operations and programs with the Office of Access and Community Programs, said the Paralympic sports day is an evolution from the previous wheelchair basketball clinics.
To Williamson, the Paralympic sports day gives an opportunity for people who identify as able-bodied to participate in sports that they already know from a completely different vantage point.
Quintanilla, speaking to the group playing wheelchair basketball at the end of the day, said they want to change the narrative of adaptive sports. He said that society often doesn’t understand adaptive sports as anything but a form of rehabilitation for the athletes.
“We don’t want to be looked at as an inspiration,” said Quintanilla. “We’re gonna be looked at as an actual athlete, like someone as you would view as a normal, able-bodied.”