Feser hoops it up for Team Canada
(taken from the April 12, 2008 St. Albert Gazette)
By Jeff Hansen
Staff Writer		    

Going for the gold at the 2008 Paralympics Games is a dream come true for wheelchair basketball player Tara Feser.Tara Feser

"I’m ecstatic. I don’t think I’ve come down from cloud nine yet," the St. Albert resident told the Gazette Wednesday. "I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympics. It’s a dream I’ve had ever since I was four when I started playing soccer. I remember watching the Olympics when I was younger on TV and I knew that was my goal. I didn’t know what sport it was going to be in but I was determined to get there."

The Sept. 6-17 Paralympics for disabled athletes will be staged in Beijing, China after the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games wrap up.

Feser, 28, was among 19 athletes invited to the recent Team Canada selection camp in Calgary. She was one of two newcomers to crack the 12-player roster. The team was announced April 4. "I will remember that day for awhile," said the recreation program manager for the City of Edmonton. "You don’t usually make the team in your first tryout so I was very shocked when the coaches told me. I kept thanking them, which is about the only thing I could say. I didn’t start crying until I left the room because I didn’t want to cry in front of the coaches."

Red ace

The last five years Feser was involved with the national program as a red ace. "It’s someone who comes to the selection camp but can’t try out," she said. "I looked at it as a way to be a better player. I was constantly learning all the time."

Feser was competing against six posts classified as 4.5 players and four made the team. In wheelchair basketball classifications range from 1.0 to 4.5 based on level of ability. Out of five players on the floor, a team is allowed 14 points. National team veteran Jen Krempien of St. Albert is a 1.0 player. She has no trunk muscles and is unable to rotate because of a spinal cord injury.

"[A 4.5] means you have full mobility while sitting. You can rotate and bend up and down as well as side to side," said Feser, who had surgery in 2004 to fix her right kneecap.

"In junior high my left kneecap would pop out but it corrected itself so it ended up being my right kneecap that would dislocate. Surgery corrected the knee, however. it made it so that I can’t run or jump anymore. They later found out the reason why I can’t do all that is one leg is shorter than the other by an inch and a half. I guess it’s been like that since birth. No one had ever measured my legs until a year and a half ago."

In high school with the Queen Elizabeth Knights the five-foot-11 Feser had problems playing basketball, volleyball and team handball with her kneecap constantly dislocating.

"I had a lot of pain throughout my career playing different sports in high school. My teacher and my coach then [Christina Jones] played wheelchair basketball recreationally and she brought me into the sport to see if I liked it. That was 10 years ago and I’ve continued to play ever since," said Feser, who plays club hoops with the Edmonton Inferno, the four-time defending Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League champions.

"I finally found a sport that I could actually play and my knees didn’t really hurt. It actually allowed me to go into more of a competitive level than in stand-up."

Feser was hooked after watching her first game.

"It looked really neat. It was a little more aggressive than the stand-up game so I was intrigued by that," she said. "One day [Jones] called me out to a practice and I sat in a chair. Back then we didn’t have a fifth wheel on our chair and we didn’t have straps so it was a little scary at first but she handed me the ball and I was sitting at the foul line and I took my shot. It went in and I thought, ‘Hey! I could play this game.’"

Sport for all

She is grateful for the opportunity.

"It’s a great way to see accessibility in another light and to be able to play with someone who may have different abilities than myself. They can’t come in and play a stand-up sport but I can come and play their sport," Feser said. "It’s kind of a sport for all. Anyone off the street can jump into a chair and you’re the same person. I definitely don’t see someone like Jennifer as being disabled. I see her and I in a chair playing a sport with a piece of equipment."

Feser made her international debut earlier this year with Team Canada at the Beijing Friendship Tournament, followed by the Osaka Cup in Japan.

"Back in November I wasn’t going to Beijing. There was only a select few who were, mainly the main 12 [like Krempien] from last year’s team. I was just going to Osaka but they had some injuries so they had to pull in other people and I got the call. I was quite happy. This was my chance to show the coaches what I have so that they know when we have the selection camp that I can actually compete at an international level," she said. "It was probably November-December when I decided to really push hard in my training and being in Beijing just lit the fire that I needed to push it even harder."

Sandwiched between the two tournaments was a two-week training camp in Vancouver.

"I was gone for a complete month away from home and I didn’t want to come back. I knew then I wanted to be able to travel and compete internationally," Feser said. "For the month before selection camp I was always in the gym practising as hard as I could. I had to push myself to make sure that I got back to Beijing. The coaches noticed that my speed increased tremendously in that month and so did my chair skills. But what really helped me make the team was my aggressiveness and my drive to leave it all on the court."

Stepped it up

Feser saw spot duty coming off the bench in Beijing but averaged 20 to 30 minutes per game as a starter in all four games at the Osaka Cup.

"The few minutes I did get in each game I showed what I could produce out on that court and that gave me a lot more confidence going into the Osaka Cup. It was a completely different role than I had in Beijing so it was nice to see the coaches gave me that responsibility and knew that I could step it up."

Team Canada won the Beijing tournament but finished fourth in Japan.

"It was an amazing feeling just to even hear the national anthem and look down and see Canada across my chest," she said. "It was even amazing just to be in the facility that the Paralympics are actually going to be at. Even if I wasn’t going to be there I at least had that opportunity to experience it once.

"And then to get on the floor for that first time I was very excited and very nervous. I went out right away and fouled someone and my fifth wheel fell off and it was a big whole to-do but once I calmed down it was much better."

In 2004, Team Canada’s unprecedented run of three straight Paralympic gold medals ended with bronze at Athens.

"There is a lot of pressure for us to actually step it back up and go for the gold but I see it as a positive pressure. It’s something that we need to light the fire under us to train even harder in the next six months to the Paralympics so that we push ourselves to make that gold a reality."
jhansen@stablert.greatwest.ca

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