After years of suggestions from his basketball coach, Jason Long finally consented. This year he entered the National Veterans Wheelchair Games.
He brought home one gold medal, two silver medals and two bronze medals.
Long usually gets around Riordan Hall where he works out every morning on crutches, but he's been a member of a wheelchair basket ball team for years. He drives to Fort Smith at least once a week to practice. But at national competition it's all individual, he explained. He entered the games as an individual and was matched up with other athletes for the team events. He won a silver in basketball on a team he had just met.
"It doesn't take long to know who can play and who can't," he explained.
Long was in the Army infantry for eight years. The Army was going to be his career, but a minor injury ended that. At Fort Irwin, Calif., he was being treated for a tear in his MCL, the ligament behind the knee, but a doctor's mistake caused him to lose his leg. He's now on disability.
He was already working out to keep up with the basketball players who were half his age, he explained, but when he decided to compete at the games, he added to his work out. The only problem with the fitness center at Riordan Hall is the lack of free weights, he said, but he understands the safety issues with free weights. He used a machine to train for the bench press where he earned his gold medal.
He competed against veterans who were close to his age and weight, but at the Wheelchair Games, participants are also classified by the extent of their disability. It wouldn't make sense for a quadriplegic to compete against someone with full use of their arms. A computer keeps track of that. Besides basketball and bench press, he won a silver in Boccie ball, a bronze in javelin and a bronze in discus.
Long left the games not knowing about the fifth medal. A few weeks after he got home, the UPS driver brought him the silver for Boccie ball.
He hasn't decided if he wants to compete again next year. Although there is some cost involved in attending the games, that doesn't bother him. It's the training needed to compete that may stop him.
Long and his family moved to Bella Vista eight years ago to be closer to his mother. He likes the weather here much more than the weather he left in the Chicago area.
He's married with two children, ages 14 and 3.
General News on 08/30/2017