Wheelchair vets warming up for national games

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Indomitable spirits

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Wheelchair vets warming up for national games

ROBERT KIRKHAM/Buffalo News
Michael P. Sutton competes in Buffalo Madness, sponsored by the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, this weekend. Here he's eyeing a target at Allied Sportsmen of Western New York, in Alden.By TOM BUCKHAM
News Staff Reporter
5/11/2002


Their sights were set on bull's-eyes, but the veterans lined up in wheelchairs Friday in an indoor shooting range in Alden were really targeting the upcoming National Veterans Wheelchair Games.

Buffalo Madness, five days of competition sponsored by the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, is a warm-up for the July event in Cleveland, the largest wheelchair sporting event in the United States.

And the bigger the arena, the better the Western New York team seems to perform. At the 2001 games in Manhattan, for example, four team members were multiple medalists.

Joe Stoyle of Lackawanna won a gold in archery, silvers in javelin and discus and a bronze in bowling in his disability category.

Marjory Wagner of Clarence took golds in archery and three swimming events - 50-yard freestyle, breaststroke and backstroke.

Michael Wilson of Springville brought home golds in motorized slalom (a wheelchair obstacle course) and bowling, and a bronze in 9-ball billiards.
And George Zawacki of Niagara Falls took home bronze medals in bowling, shot put and javelin.

Winning builds confidence, said Michael P. Sutton of Lancaster, a vice president of Eastern Paralyzed Veterans and a Buffalo Madness organizer. He has "a boxful" of medals from his days as a member of the U.S. wheelchair table tennis team, which competed around the globe.

There is more to Buffalo Madness than competition, said Sutton, 42, who was disabled in a traffic accident while stationed at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y., in 1979.

"Our members need recreational activities. It's one of the best ways to rehab," said Sutton, who runs a veterans wheelchair bowling league at Transit Lanes in Amherst. The games are good medicine for the mind, too, Sutton pointed out: "They get involved and gain a sense of camaraderie with fellow vets."

Buffalo Madness opened with air rifle, archery and trap shooting competitions Friday at Allied Sportsmen of Western New York in Alden.

The action shifts today to Isle View Park in the Town of Tonawanda for a hand-cycle clinic at 9:30 a.m., and then to the Erie Community College South Campus for the Kevin Forcezk Memorial Wheelchair Basketball Games at 4 p.m.
Another hand-cycle clinic will be given at Isle View Park at 9:30 a.m. Sunday. Field events, including javelin, shot put and discus, begin at 10 a.m. Monday in Westwood Park, Lancaster, and bowling will start at noon Tuesday in Transit Lanes.