Auburn's Adaptive Recreation and Athletics organization is preparing for the wheelchair basketball team's first season playing in a new, higher-ranking division.
The campus organization has been growing rapidly since 2009, and with the wheelchair basketball team entering a collegiate division this fall, it continues to reach major milestones.
"Our mission is to provide opportunities for students, faculty and staff on campus with physical disabilities, to provide them with more opportunities in recreation and athletics," said Nathan Waters, coordinator of Adaptive Recreation and Athletics and disability specialist with the Office of Accessibility.
Waters played a key role in founding the organization when he was a graduate student of the special education, rehabilitation and counseling department in the College of Education.
From lack of equipment to lack of funds, Waters said the organization was created out of a desire to further the potential of adaptive athletics on campus.
Jared Rehm, president of Adaptive Recreation and Athletics and coach of wheelchair basketball and tennis, became almost immediately involved with the organization.
Rehm, who is pursuing his doctorate in kinesiology and biomechanics, played wheelchair sports at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater before coming to Auburn. He transferred to Auburn in 2009 and learned of Waters' efforts in conjunction with the Office of Accessibility.
As one of the organization's major objectives is to promote physical activity and recreation opportunities for people with disabilities, Waters and Rehm began looking for ways to include incoming members in physical activities.
At first, tennis was the game of choice because of Rehm's familiarity with the game and because so few players are needed to have a game.
Adaptive Recreation and Athletics first sponsored Rehm at the tennis National Collegiate Wheelchair Championship.
"When we first started this group there were a whole bunch of different ideas about what to do, because there's so many different recreational things that people with disabilities can do," Rehm said. "But we decided that the best course would be to attack one thing and just get it going."
That "one thing" became Auburn University's Wheelchair Basketball Team.
Being a campus organization, Adaptive Recreation and Athletics received permanent status in 2011, which was another accomplishment for the group, having been on provisional status since its creation two years earlier.
"Our group is students with disabilities and students without, so it's open to anybody who wants to join, who just wants to be involved," Waters said. "We've got a mix of students. We also have a couple of staff members from the University that are involved as well."
Currently the group has 35 members and is accepting new members. The first meeting of the semester was Sept. 18, when club officers were elected.
Mary Kathryn Fletcher, sophomore in apparel merchandising, is one of the newest members and was elected secretary of the organization.
"I didn't really know what to expect," Fletcher said. "Immediately everyone was extremely welcoming and very open. The second I walked in I felt completely at home."
Anyone who wants to join can find more information about the organization on its website, auadaptive.blogspot.com
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