By Kristina Rutherford,
SPORTSNET STAFF
Richard Peter is more than twice the age of the kid he’s facing off against. He moves across the floor easily, while the 18-year-old struggles to balance his movements and handle his ball hockey stick.
It sounds like a mismatch, but the two have a lot in common. They’re both First Nations people, they both grew up on a reserve in British Columbia, and they’re both paralyzed from the waist down.
Peter, a two-time Paralympic gold medallist, had been asked to visit the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver to introduce the teen to wheelchair sports. “His accident,” Peter explains, “is still fresh.” It’s been little over a month.
“I’m there mainly to lend an ear and to listen,” says the 17-year veteran of Canada’s wheelchair basketball team. “I’ll go over there and we’ll play sports and talk. It’s part of what I do.”
The B.C. sports hall of famer is home in Vancouver for the summer before it’s back to Italy with his wife and former women’s team member Marni Abbott-Peter for another semi-pro season. It’s a big one, too, with less than a year remaining until London plays host to the Paralympic Games.
Should Canada’s wheelchair basketball team earn a qualifying berth at November’s Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, Mex., it will be Peter’s fifth trip to the Paralympics, and the Canadians – gold medallists in 2000 and 2004 and silver medallists in 2008 – will be looking for a fourth straight podium finish. Peter, known to teammates as Bear, led the team at the 2010 world championships in assists, field goal shooting percentage and minutes played.
When he’s not focused on training and playing, Peter says his job is to introduce wheelchair sports to newly injured kids and athletes.
“It’s one of the most important things I do,” he says, and the reason he’s been working and volunteering with the B.C. Wheelchair Sports Association since it hooked him on sport at the age of 15.
“Richard is one of the major leaders in the system in Canada,” says the association’s executive director, Kathy Newman. “He’s obviously well respected for his skills internationally, and it’s really his way with people that makes him such a good role model.”
Peter is regularly the first call to visit a recently injured child, and especially when it’s a fellow member of the First Nations. A member of the Cowichan Tribe on Vancouver Island, Peter grew up on a reserve in Duncan, and at the age of four was paralyzed from the waist down after a school bus he was chasing hit him.
Finances and the need for travel meant his family had a tough time getting him into wheelchair basketball, especially with a high-end sports wheelchair costing anywhere from $3,000 – $7,000.
“I was very lucky that I got support from my tribe and from my community, and that helped get me going and keep me going,” he says. “But you know, we’ve come a long way since.”
In the 17 years since Peter first joined the national team he says awareness, accessibility and support for wheelchair sports has increased across the province, with more adaptive equipment and programs available.
Specifically among Aboriginal people Peter points to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics having a dramatic effect, where for the first time in Olympic and Paralympic history Aboriginal peoples partnered with the organizing committee from the beginning and played a role in the planning, staging and hosting of the Games.
“I’ve met a lot of young First Nations athletes who through VANOC’s efforts have been able to start into some sports,” Peter says, pointing to the snowboarding and skiing programs now on some reserves. “It was huge. There are a lot more opportunities and a lot more funding. One of the biggest things is the empowerment it’s given people, seeing that they’re still respected as athletes and that they can still achieve their goals and go to the Paralympics. It was a great eye-opener for the First Nations. It’s opened a lot of doors for people.”
‘Opening doors’ is a phrase Peter uses a lot. It’s something he prides himself on, with the thought that one day he’ll introduce wheelchair sports to a kid and it changes his or her world as it did his.
Next week at GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, Peter will be giving a wheelchair basketball lesson, followed by a game. It was a request from the 18-year-old he visited recently, and he promised he’d be back.
“I don’t go there and wow him or anything, but hopefully he’ll see there’s a lot out there for him,” Peter says. “Hopefully it’ll open doors.”
