UA Sending Five Players to Beijing for Paralympic Games

Five University of Alabama wheelchair basketball players will be heading to Beijing, China for the 2008 Paralympic Games. 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 U.S. men’s and women’s team was announced on Sunday summer after a weekend tryout camp that was held at Lakeshore Foundation, an official U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Site, in Birmingham, Alabama and the Canadian Team was announced last week after a similar tryout camp in Winnipeg, Canada.

Stephanie Wheeler (Norlina, NC), Mary Allison Milford (Magnolia, AR), and Alana Nichols, (Farmington NM) were named to the U.S. National Team and Freshman, Katie Harnock (Toronto, CA) was named to the Canadian National Team. Alabama men’s assistant coach Jake Counts (Covington, KY) made the U.S. Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team.

Mary Allison Milford is a Junior at Alabama and is playing on her third U.S. National Team. Milord has traveled with the U.S. team to Rio, Brazil, Osaka, Japan and Colorado Springs, CO in the last three years.

Freshman Katie Harnock also represented the Canadian National Team in Rio, Brazil for the Pan Am Games in 2007 while Stephanie Wheeler and Alana Nichols are veterans on 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 in 2007.

The 2008 Paralympic Games will be held in Beijing, China this September. The players will be training across the United States and Canada all summer in preparation for the games.

For more information about the University of Alabama Wheelchair Basketball or the Alabama Wheelchair Athletics program please visit: www.uads.ua.edu