All Sports Are Equal

By Cameron Beattie

Ethan Linksy played collegiate basketball at the University of Illinois and the University of Missouri. He worked out five times a week to stay in shape. He attended practice every day from 5:30 to 8:30 in the morning to work on his game. He would showcase his talent on the court at least once a week during the season in front of a crowd.

Ethan, unlike many college basketball athletes never had a slam dunk in his career, not because he couldn’t jump high but because he did all of these things from his chair. His wheelchair.

The rigor and effort that goes into being a para-athlete is no different than what goes into being an able-bodied collegiate athlete. Para-Athletes are not a step below but on the same exact level.

Physical disabilities are more common than people think. Physical disability is defined as when a person’s physical functioning, mobility, dexterity, or stamina is limited. These groups of people make up the largest minority group in the United States, with about 74.6 million people having some type of disability.

In Ethan’s specific instance he was born with his disability, “so I didn’t experience a huge change in terms of being injured but sports are just a part of anyone’s life. There such a huge part of our culture. They’ve done so much for me, just in terms of teaching me to be a professional. I simply can’t imagine my life without them,”

After college Ethan had to find a way to stay involved, “I still had that itch to compete and I wanted it to still be part of my life.” He turned to coaching, “My work gave me an opportunity to find people in Adaptive Sports New England.” When asked why he does it he said, “I consider myself a student of sports more than an athlete. So that interest kind of fits well with being a coach. It’s been a really great match.”

Ethan cherishes the opportunity to get to work with disabled children and show them they can play sports the same way able-bodied people can. “It means a lot to me to work with young children and kind of help introduce the sport and teach them lessons at an early age because I think that it could change a lot of lives.”

In terms of his future, Ethan hopes to one day start a college basketball team of his own and bring the sport he loves to more people like him, “I mean I would definitely love to start a program at the collegiate level. That would be a dream, for sure. But as of right now there’s a lot that has to come into play. I have to learn much more in order to really get up there but yeah, I’m young I got time.”