Voices of Arizona: Wheelchair rugby player Josh Wheeler talks elite athleticism at Paralympics

The Paralympics begin Wednesday, Aug. 28, in Paris. And among the thousands of competitors, several call Arizona home.

In a series of special Voices of Arizona segments this week, Jill Ryan dives into the stories of our state’s homegrown Paralympians.

Josh Wheeler is a member of Team USA in wheelchair rugby.

“We play on a basketball court and we have chairs that look like they’re set up from a "Mad Max" movie. But they’re not, they’re designed for this sport,” Wheeler said.

He’s a two-time Paralympic silver medalist from Tucson with stories that make the sport’s nickname “murder ball” unsurprising.

“I cut this finger down to the bone. One time I had broken bones, and I have played through broken bones and injuries and that’s just part of the game,” Wheeler said.

He says the custom chairs cost between $10,000 to $15,000.

“So we will be pushing down the court and somebody will be trying to stop us and will run full steam as hard as they can into us. And sometimes they flip over, sometimes I flip over or somebody else flips over,” Wheeler said.

He says he had a learning curve to this contact sport, and strategy is just as necessary as the physical demands.

“If you watch the Paralympics, if you were to get into a chair and compete with us, you would realize that we are elite athletes and not everyone can do it at the level that we do,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler has always played sports, but he was introduced to wheelchair rugby at 27, not long into using a chair after a motorcycle crash. Now, at 44, he’s off to his third Paralympics.