Organized wheelchair basketball was started in the same year at both ends of the US. The California Chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) and the New England Chapter of the same organization both agree that it started sometime in 1946 in the Veterans Administation (VA) hospitals. It spread across the nation to VA hospitals in Boston, Chicago, Memphis, Richmond and New York. Before long, the sport had spread across the border to Canada and across the ocean to England.

By 1948 there were six teams in the US, all members of the PVA and all functioning from VA hospitals. In that year, the Birmingham, California team received a sponsored tour - by plane - to play paraplegic teams across the country. This tour spawned the formation of the first wheelchair basketball team outside of a VA hospital. The first 'civilian' hometown team was named the Kansas City Wheelchair Bulldozers, later the Kansas City Rolling Pioneers.

The Flying Wheels of California won the first National PVA Championship. Their name became well known because the Wheels made 10 cross-country tours. These trips did much raise public awareness of wheelchair basketball, paraplegics and other severely disabled persons.

The PVA Tournament was loosely structured and open to only paraplegic or spinal cord injured veterans, and in 1950, seemed destined to slide into history. The creation of the more inclusive National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) helped prevent this loss.

At the time, paraplegics felt that competition in the open tournament was a little rugged, and in many cases too severe for many paraplegic players. Amputees, polios, and orthopedically-disabled players were thought to have many advantages over the paraplegic; advantages of balance, speed and the free use of arms at all times. Until later experience dispelled the idea, it was popularly thought that 'the paraplegic must always use one arm for balance and one arm for throwing,' and the inevitable consequence was that this 'minimized accuracy, control and speed-all important in affecting the overall ability of the team.'

With a newer tournament opening a tougher field of competition, however, it wasn't long before the paraplegics wanted 'in' - and the PVA Tourney was a thing of the past. Its loss to the more highly competitive NWBA Tournament has been regretted by very few, if any. The psychology is simple...who would admit that the competition was too severe?

In 1948, the Kansas City team was joined by another hometown team, the New Jersey Wheelers, and then the first college team, the University of Illinois Gizz Kids.

In April of 1949, a group of University of Illinois students, working under the inspired and tireless efforts of Tim Nugent, Director of Rehabilitation, formed the first National Wheelchair Basketball Tournament. That was the beginning of the sport as we know it today.

The National Association, its 22 conferences and 165 teams are all directly related to the original plan made by the organizing group of disabled students under Tim's guidance. Tim continued to serve as Technical Advisor and Commissioner of the Association for 25 years, leading it through many stages of growth and development, until his retirement in 1973.

Today, wheelchair basketball is an international sport. It started when the Montreal Wheelchair Wonders of the Canadian Paraplegic Association were invited to participate in the sixth NWBT in 1954. The international movement was given greater impetus the following year when the Eastern Conference champions, the Pan American Jets, journeyed to England to compete in the International Stoke Mandeville Games. That year, as in the following years, the U.S. wheelchair basketball team - as part of the larger contingent competing in all phases of wheelchair sports - won the international championship.

 In 1974, the NWBA legislated to permit women to play on the formerly all-male teams.. Since then, a Women's Division has been created and six of the eleven womens' teams played a regular schedule of games in established NWBA conferences in 1990-91. The Central Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball Conference was formed in 1970.

In 1977, the University of Illinois hosted the First Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball Tournament (NIWBT).

In the fall of 1991, the Congress of USA Basketball voted to admit the NWBA as an active member, following eleven years as an Associate Member. Appointed to the Board of Directors was the NWBA Commissioner, Stan Labanowich. The action represented a significant advance in the integration of the sport into the national governing body.

1995 proved to be historic. Basketball legend Dave Kiley was elected Commissioner of the NWBA, narrowly defeating Stan Labanowich, a staunch champion of democratic principles who had led the organization for twenty-three years. Kiley is the first player to serve as Commissioner.

On the international front, the sport has organized as the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (1990). For seventeen years, it was known as the Basketball Section of the International Stoke Mandeville Federation.

Adapted from the NWBA website

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