You go where no one cares about you in a wheelchair, no one cares except ball.
In Flower Mound, Texas, a program four decades in the making continues to offer something rare and necessary: a place where disabled children are not accommodated into sport, but welcomed into it as athletes. The Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks, serving more than twenty young players between the ages of five and eighteen, asks nothing less of its participants than full competitive effort — and in doing so, quietly challenges a world that too often mistakes difference for limitation. Where most communities leave disabled youth without a court to call their own, this program builds one, and funds it on the faith of donors who believe that no child should be priced out of belonging.
- For most disabled youth across America, competitive athletics remain effectively out of reach — the Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks exists precisely because that absence is a wound.
- A single adaptive basketball wheelchair costs over four thousand dollars, and national tournament travel adds thousands more, placing the program in constant financial tension between mission and means.
- Coaches like three-time Paralympian Darlene Hunter and varsity head Mike White push players not toward accommodation but toward excellence, treating the court as a place of genuine athletic demand.
- Players like Abbie Counts, who has been rolling with the program since age five, and Dillon Matthews, who found the team after a life-altering accident, describe it as the first place where their disability stopped being a ceiling.
- The program's president and parent Andy Counts has made the directive clear: financial barriers must never be the reason a disabled child sits on the sideline.
A few years ago, Andy Counts watched his daughter Abbie roll onto a TCU basketball court during halftime, wearing number 54, weaving through defenders in front of a full arena. What moved him wasn't the score — it was the sight of disabled kids playing basketball the way it's meant to be played: seriously, competitively, without apology.
The Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks, founded in 1979, now runs three tiers of play for children ages five to eighteen — a prep team, a junior varsity squad coached by three-time Paralympian Darlene Hunter, and a varsity team under Mike White. In August, more than twenty kids gathered at a Flower Mound church for prep camp, learning the particular geometry of moving a wheelchair at speed across a court.
Abbie Counts, now seventeen and born with spina bifida, has been with the program her entire life. Dillon Matthews, also seventeen, came to it after an accident in 2017 took away the standing game he'd always known. Both describe the team as something the wider world rarely offers disabled youth: a place where they're expected to work hard, and where no one treats their disability as a limit. 'You go to where no one cares about you in a wheelchair,' Matthews said. 'No one cares about anything except ball.'
Coach White's philosophy is simple — his players are athletes, not disabled athletes playing a modified game. Hunter, who played wheelchair basketball at the University of Arizona, coaches from lived experience, and her deepest lesson is this: doing something differently doesn't mean anything is wrong with you.
The program runs almost entirely on donations. A single basketball wheelchair costs four thousand dollars or more, and competing nationally means plane tickets and hotel stays. Andy Counts, now the program's president, holds the line: financial ability should never determine who gets to play. For disabled youth in most American communities, that court simply doesn't exist. The Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks is proof that it can.
Andy Counts stood in the stands at a TCU basketball game a few years back and watched his daughter Abbie roll onto the court during halftime. She was twelve then, wearing number 54, weaving through defenders as ten young players from the Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks put on a scrimmage for the crowd. Abbie made her shots. The arena cheered. But what struck her father most wasn't the score—it was the simple fact that an entire room full of people had just watched disabled kids play basketball the way it's meant to be played: competitively, seriously, without apology.
The Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks started in 1979 as the Dallas Junior Texans and has grown into a three-tiered program serving children ages five to eighteen. There's a prep team for the youngest players, a junior varsity squad coached by three-time Paralympian Darlene Hunter, and a varsity team under Mike White. About twenty-two kids showed up for the August prep camp at Trietsch Memorial United Methodist Church in Flower Mound, learning the fundamentals of shooting, layups, and the particular geometry of moving a wheelchair at speed across a court.
Abbie Counts is now seventeen and has been with the program since she was five years old. She was born with spina bifida. Dillon Matthews, also seventeen, came to the team differently—he played regular sports growing up until an accident in 2017 left him dependent on a wheelchair. Both found something essential in the program that the wider world doesn't always offer disabled youth: a place where they belong, where they're expected to work hard, where no one treats their disability as a ceiling.
"You go to the tournaments, you see a thousand wheelchairs and it's just like life," Matthews said. "You go to where no one cares about you in a wheelchair, no one cares about anything except ball." The sport itself demands precision and adaptation. In wheelchair basketball, lateral movement works differently than in the standing game. Everything is head-on. You can't slither past a defender or run through them. It's all about chair positioning and the angles your body can create from a seated position. For Matthews, learning those constraints wasn't a limitation—it was a language.
Mike White, the varsity coach, doesn't see his players as disabled athletes playing a modified game. He sees them as athletes, period. "They need to be treated the way everyone else gets treated when they play sports," he said. "That's my primary focus: to give them as close to the high school experience as I can." Hunter brings something different to the court—she grew up in adaptive sports herself, played wheelchair basketball at the University of Arizona, and now coaches from lived experience. She can show a player how to execute a move because she's executed it. But her real teaching goes deeper. "Just because you do it differently, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you," she tells her players.
The program operates almost entirely on donations, and the costs are real. A single basketball wheelchair runs four thousand dollars or more. Tournaments mean plane tickets and hotel stays because the teams worth competing against are scattered across the country. Andy Counts, now the program's president, is clear about the mission: "We do not want financial ability to restrict someone's ability to play basketball. It's really all about just making sure there's no barriers." For disabled youth in most American communities, competitive sports are nearly impossible to access. The Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks exists to prove that they don't have to be.
Citações Notáveis
They need to be treated the way everyone else gets treated when they play sports. That's my primary focus: to give them as close to the high school experience as I can.— Mike White, varsity coach
Just because you do it differently, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.— Darlene Hunter, junior varsity coach
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a program like this matter so much? There are other sports programs for kids.
Because for disabled children, there almost aren't. If you're in a wheelchair, your options shrink dramatically. This program says: you can compete. You can be pushed. You can be part of a team that expects excellence from you.
What's the difference between playing wheelchair basketball and regular basketball?
The mechanics are different—you can't move laterally the way you do on your feet. Everything is head-on, chair-based. But that's not really the point. The point is that the kids learn to work within those constraints and become excellent athletes anyway.
Dillon Matthews said something about tournaments being like life. What did he mean?
He meant that when you're surrounded by a thousand other wheelchair users, all competing, all serious about the game, disability stops being the defining thing about you. You're just a player. The disability is just part of the landscape.
The coaches seem to have a philosophy about how to treat these kids.
They treat them like athletes, not like kids who happen to be disabled. Mike White wants to give them a high school sports experience. Darlene Hunter teaches them that doing things differently doesn't mean anything is wrong with them. It's a radical idea in a world that usually pities disabled kids.
What's the biggest barrier to keeping the program going?
Money. A wheelchair costs four thousand dollars. Travel to national tournaments costs thousands more. They run on donations. Without that, kids who want to play can't afford to.