Feser a basketball vet these days
National team co-captain for worlds in women's wheelchair basketball
(Taken from the Friday, June 25, 2010 Saint City News )
SHERI LAMB		 
Feser shooting for gold at wheelchair basketball worldsTara Feser

In only two years, Tara Feser has gone from rookie to veteran on the Canadian national wheelchair women’s basketball team.

“It’s kind of weird being on the team for only two and a half years and being called a veteran,” said Feser, 30, home in St. Albert this week after an intense week-long training camp in Ottawa in preparation for the 2010 World Championships in Birmingham, England, from July 7 to 17. “It’s kind of neat.”

The women’s team heads to the championships with the target on their backs, having won the gold medal in 2006.

“We want to keep the gold medal from the last world championship that we went to — I didn’t personally go, but the team went,” said the resident of Deer Ridge.

Feser was named to the women’s basketball team in 2008 just in time for the Paralympics in Beijing, China, where the ladies finished a disappointing fifth.

“We only have eight left from Beijing and there’s only five or six [players] returning from the original World Championship four years ago,” said Feser. “We wanted to change the lineup that we had from Beijing.”

In Beijing, Feser played for a couple of minutes at several junctions in the game whenever one of the starters needed a break. Today, she’s a co-captain and plays anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes a game.

“I’m a lot more of a shooting threat and a leader now,” she said. “It’s a completely different role than it was two years ago at the Paralympics.”

The graduate of Queen Elizabeth High School in Edmonton also has a wealth of new experience after spending the last two years playing for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

“That really helped,” said Feser, who plays the post. “Four of our athletes [were] actually down there, so I think that helped our team work together more.”

In addition to Feser, Canadians Janet McLachlan, Cindy Ouellet and Katie Harnock played on the Crimson Tide women’s wheelchair basketball team that won back-to-back championships — a feat that had never been achieved before in the sport at the NCAA level.

“The program was running for six years before we won that first national championship, and then we did back-to-back, which is very tough in the sport because of the high competition that they have in the U.S.” said Feser, who was named the MVP for the 2008-2009 season. “It usually switches back and forth between teams.”

In her two years in Alabama, the Crimson Tide only lost four games, all to men’s wheelchair teams whom they played to get stiffer competition. With 12 highly competitive women’s teams in the U.S., compared to half a dozen in Canada, Feser said it’s better preparation for the world championships.

“In Canada, it’s clubs and you play maybe twice a week with recreational players; down there, you’re playing every single day with competitive teammates in a competitive league,” she said.

The former Edmonton Inferno player — with whom she played from 2001 to 2008 and won four gold medals, two silver medals and three bronze medals — played regular basketball in high school, but suffered knee problems.

“I had a knee problem in that my kneecap constantly dislocated,” said Feser. “My standup coach at Queen Elizabeth played wheelchair basketball recreationally and she introduced me to the sport, saying I should maybe try basketball in a chair so I don’t have as many knee problems.

“I played for about six or seven years, until I got my knee surgery [in 2004], and found out that I have one leg longer than the other,” she continued.

The disability gave her eligibility to play wheelchair basketball on an international level — the disability classification is on a scale from one to 4.5, with the higher the number, the more mobile a player is. Feser, who doesn’t need a chair in everyday life, is a 4.5.

“Anyone can hop into a chair,” she said. “I find it no different than playing in a standup game where everyone has a different strength or weakness.”
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