Two Charlotte-based teams set to defend national titles in wheelchair basketball

The National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s 2022 tournament in Wichita, Kansas, was a heady time for the Charlotte Rollin’ Hornets. Teams from the program made four national finals, winning the adult Division II and junior level varsity titles. The adult Division III and junior prep teams finished second in the country.

Collectively, it was arguably the best season for any program in the history of the NWBA, which was founded in 1948, just a few years after the NBA started in 1946.

The 2023 tournament will be played over two weekends with the junior divisions starting it off March 24-26, and the adult teams following from March 31-April 2.

Charlotte is sending three teams to the junior tournament in the main and NIT varsity (high school) brackets, and a prep (junior high) team. Division I and Division II teams will represent the following weekend. The Rollin’ Hornets also field a Division III team and a women’s team that will play during the weekend of April 21 in Birmingham, Alabama, in concert with the first military division tournament. Most adult and junior NWBA teams feature both male and female players.

Success brings a harder challenge

It will be a busy two weeks for Preston Howell IV, a senior at South Point High School in Belmont who, along with a few of his varsity teammates, will play in the adult tournaments as well. Howell, Adam Smith, a junior at Marvin Ridge High School, and Kaden Bagley, a junior from Columbia, South Carolina, will play with the Division I team. Jonathan Castro, a senior from Greenville, South Carolina, will play with the Division II team.

Howell, Charlotte’s best shooter, had a historical competition last year, being named the MVP for both the varsity and Division III tournaments.

Injuring his collarbone at a tournament in February, Howell’s participation was limited during the season, which contributed to the defending champions holding the No. 4 seed going into the tournament. The Varsity Purple team will begin its defense against the No. 13-seeded Mad City Badgers from Wisconsin. The Varsity Teal team opens play against the WASA Marquette Eagles, also from Wisconsin.

The 2022 Division II championship came with more than a trophy and medals. It also bumped the team up to the top tier, something the players find more challenging.

“This is what we want; you want to play the best teams in the country and that’s what DI is all about,” said Ryan Neiswender. Charlotte’s Division II squad improved dramatically when Neiswender, who helped the USA gain the top of the podium in Tokyo and Gail Gaeng, who won her gold medal at the Rio Paralympics, both moved to Charlotte before last season.

Besides bringing their own skill sets to the team, the Paralympians have been able to share their world class experience and leadership to help raise the game of their teammates and others in the program.

A primary beneficiary of that was Howell. He will play for the University of Alabama next year. The Crimson Tide won the NWBA’s collegiate men’s title last week with two former Rollin’ Hornets, Austin Smith from Concord, and Josh Hipps from Gastonia, on the roster.

Playing against Division I teams has also hastened Howell’s development. “Everybody’s been around the game for a long time and half of them are Paralympians,” he said. “The game’s a lot faster and the (basketball) IQ level of the game is so much greater than other divisions.”

That experience also helped him make his first national team, representing the USA last September at the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) men’s under-23 world championship in Phuket, Thailand.

Creating a legacy

Though winning is the goal of any competitive athlete, Neiswender believes the journey is more important than the result. He says looking to play for an established Division I team after he moved to Charlotte was never a consideration. “For me, it’s all about being where your feet are. You want to make an impact that can last generations in cities where you’re living. It’s important for me to do that.”

As for playing in the top flight, Neiswender said, “It’s a whole new ball game. The game is faster, and the game is not kind. So those little mistakes you made in DII are magnified in DI and it’s the difference in winning by four or losing by 40.”

The No. 13-seeded Division I team will open against the against No. 4 seed Memorial Rehabilitation Sharks from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The No. 11-seeded Division II team will play the No. 6 Kansas City Kings.

History of wheelchair ball in Charlotte

“We’ve always had success on the court and at least one of our teams finishing in the top ten in the country,” said Mike Godsey, coach of the prep team and one of the founders of Abilities Unlimited of the Carolinas. The 501(c)(3) non-profit organization was formed in 2005 by three fathers of physically disabled children in the greater Charlotte area to help grow the junior program, which originally started under the Adaptive Sports and Adventures program at the Charlotte Institute of Rehabilitation.

The current makeup of the adult and junior teams is diverse with more than twenty Black, Hispanic, and Asian players across the various team rosters. That’s an inherent commitment within a sport that represents the 1 in 5 Americans with a disability and evolved from rehabilitation exercise for injured soldiers returning from World War II to providing recreational and competitive opportunity in sports.

Wheelchair basketball has been strong in the Queen City well before the introduction of junior competition in the late 1990s on the adult side, going back to the 1970s with the appropriately monikered Carolina Tarwheels. In the 1980s, there were enough players that a second team, the Carolina Cyclones was started.

The adult teams adopted the Hornets name shortly after the NBA came to town in 1988, changing that to the Bobcats when the league returned and eventually back to the Rollin’ Hornets. Multiple national champion trophies have come back to Charlotte. The Division II team won its first national title in 1996. More recently, the prep team won the 2018 championship.

To date, the Rollin’ Hornets have sent 27 athletes to college to play wheelchair basketball or wheelchair track on college scholarships at schools including at Alabama, Arizona, Illinois, Texas-Arlington, Edinboro, and Southwest Minnesota State. Three more will join that list next season.

This story was updated at 9:40 p.m. Friday.