After winning a national championship at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Jared Rehm brought his passion for basketball to the Plains.
Rehm, graduate student in kinesiology, doubles as point guard and coach for Auburn's wheelchair basketball team.
"I'm a really competitive guy," Rehm said. "I really love winning, so it's an outlet to compete."
Rehm, who has been involved in adaptive sports programs for 12 years, has worked with Nathan Waters, graduate student in rehabilitation counseling, since the fall of 2008 to build an adaptive sports program at Auburn.
"I got used to practicing every day and playing every day," Rehm said. "And so when I came down here, I kind of thought that that was done and over with, but having this program now is an opportunity to get back into it and be competitive again."
Waters said the Adaptive Recreation and Athletics program is a permanent organization.
Rehm said the games can get intense and physical.
"It's just like able-bodied basketball--like, the chair's part of your body, and so you see guys running into each other and bumping each other down the court," Rehm said.
Waters said the program became a member of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association last fall.
For now, the team is in Division III, a league that isn't limited to students, allowing community members to participate as well.
The association also has a more competitive Division II classification, as well as an intercollegiate division for university students, according to Waters.
"We hope to, in the next couple years, have enough students on campus to have an intercollegiate team," Waters said.
With that goal in mind, Rehm said he will soon be going on the road to high school tournaments and camps to recruit players to Auburn.
Rehm is also Auburn's only wheelchair tennis player and plays singles matches against Waters.
"The great thing about tennis is that a wheelchair player can play anybody," Waters said. "The rule difference on it is they get two bounces--everything else is the same."
"He can go play anybody he wants to, and he's good enough--he can hang with a lot of people."
Rehm, who started playing wheelchair tennis at the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham when he was in high school, said he hopes to see other players come out to join him.
"I would love for someone to come out and play some tennis," Rehm said. "It would be awesome to have some guys in chairs come out and really start a program here for that, too."
Waters said the program has nine sports wheelchairs in a variety of sizes that are available in the Student Activities Center.
Sports wheelchairs, which range in cost from $1,500 to $3,500, have angled wheels and a wider base, which provides more balance and better handling, allowing players to make quick cuts and even 360-degree maneuvers.
The wheelchair basketball team is open to students, faculty, staff and interested community members.
The basketball practices are held every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the auxiliary gym beside the Aquatics Center.
For more information on the Adaptive Sports Program, go to its website at www.auadaptive.org or e-mail Jared Rehm at jmr0020@auburn.edu.
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