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Wheelchair Basketball
Spring 2011 · Comment ·
Basketball was second nature to 6-foot-9 Anthony Pone. The Philadelphia native played on a community college state championship team while serving in the Army until a car accident took his right leg in 2002. Five years later, his Veterans Administration counselor convinced him to give the sport another try. Soon, scholarship offers to play wheelchair basketball started pouring in. His third year with the has the 37-year-old center still adapting. 鈥淭he chair is your legs,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 all basketball. Put the ball in the hoop.鈥� Pone, who averages three to five blocked shots and six to eight rebounds a game, is an imposing figure. 鈥淥nce I get that ball and I鈥檓 at that post, there鈥檚 no one who can stop me but myself,鈥� he says. The Movin鈥� Mavs seek their eighth National Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball Association championship when they host the tournament March 10鈥�12. The social work senior graduates in May with plans to earn his master鈥檚 degree. Pone鈥檚 career goal is to help fellow veterans, which he has already done through a Wounded Warriors Project tournament sponsored by the Movin鈥� Mavs in December.
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