UA Sending Five Players to Beijing for Paralympic Games

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Five University of Alabama wheelchair basketball players have been selected to travel to Beijing to play in the 2008 Paralympic Games in China in September.

Three players were named to the 2008 U.S. Paralympics Women’s Wheelchair Basketball National Team, one player to the U.S. Men’s Team, and one player was named to the Canadian National Wheelchair Basketball Team.

The players will be training across the United States and Canada all summer in preparation for the games.

The U.S. Men’s and Women’s Teams were announced recently after a weekend tryout camp that was held in Birmingham at Lakeshore Foundation, an official U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Site. The Canadian Team was announced last week after a similar tryout camp in Winnipeg, Canada.

UA students Stephanie Wheeler of Norlina, N.C., Mary Allison Milford of Magnolia, Ark., and Alana Nichols of Farmington, N.M., were named to the U.S. National Team; freshman Katie Harnock of Toronto was named to the Canadian National Team. Jake Counts of Covington, Ky., Alabama men’s assistant coach, made the U.S. Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team.

Milford is a junior at UA and is playing on her third U.S. National Team. She has traveled with the U.S. team to Brazil, Japan, and Colorado in the last three years.

Wheeler and Nichols are veterans of the U.S. National Team. Both players were selected to the U.S. team that won a silver medal at last summer’s Wheelchair Basketball World Championships.

Harnock represented the Canadian National Team in Brazil for the Pan Am Games in 2007.

For more information about UA Wheelchair Basketball or the Alabama Wheelchair Athletics program go online to www.uads.ua.edu.