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Move Along Helps People With Disabilities By Using Sports Move Along Helps People With Disabilities By Using Sports

Program has adaptive basketball, sled hockey, hand-cycling, kayaking and tennis.

By Jake Graziano

Reporter Track 1: Every Friday at Granby elementary in Fulton is basketball night…wheelchair basketball. For 10 years, Move Along Incorporated has provided adaptive sports for people with disabilities throughout central New York. Jeff Wright is the Executive Director of the program and he says that this is about having a good time.

Jeff Wright SOT 1: “Provide opportunities for individuals with disabilities to come out and enjoy some sports. Have some fun.”

Reporter Track 2: Move Along was founded in two-thousand-nine and its mission has been to tear down road blocks ever since.

Jeff Wright SOT 2: “This equipment is bloody expensive. It is 32-hundred-dollars up for a chair. That is a huge barrier for a kid to come out and play basketball.”

Reporter Track 3: The program runs six-thirty to eight each Friday in the Fall, and Wright says childhood disability is a bigger problem than some might realize.

Jeff Wright SOT 3: “In the five county area surrounding Syracuse, there’s nine-hundred students with a mobility issue. Nine-hundred. Not a huge number, but not an insignificant number.”

Reporter Track 4: Jaden Wagner is a former participant of the program who now helps run it with his father, Walt. He the equality Move Along promotes is what sets it apart.

Jaden Wagner SOT 1: “The inclusivity, the adaptiveness of the program, the awareness of the program. Half the people that play here are walking just fine.”

Reporter Track 5: Move Along also sponsors sled-hockey, hand-cycling, kayaking and tennis programs for both youth and adults throughout the year. Jake Graziano, N-C-C News.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Move Along Inc. is providing opportunities for people of all abilities in central New York to play sports and get active. The program, which was founded in 2009, offers adaptive sports for people with disabilities in a safe, inclusive environment.

“It’s so very important for everybody to stay active,” Executive Director Jeff Wright said. “Staying active makes it three times less likely you’re going to end up back in the hospital with a complication.”

Move Along was founded by Greg Callen, who was paralyzed in 2005 after falling from a second-story roof. His journey overcoming his own injury inspired him to help others move forward or “move along” from their challenges.

“There’s over 50 adaptive sports played in the United States,” Wright said. “There has to be something out there that will get you excited again, get the emotional game back under control and move forward.”

After 30 years in engineering and sales, Wright got involved with the program after suffering a severe back injury. It motivated him to start working with people on a personal level.

Picture of kids playing wheelchair basketball
Move Along’s youth wheelchair basketball program is held Friday nights at Granby Elementary school in Fulton.
© 2019 Jake Graziano

“Let’s be realistic, depression is going to be part of the game,” Wright said. “According to the Mayo Clinic, 40% of adults who suffer a traumatic injury that leads to a disability opt for suicide, so if I can stop someone from doing that, it’s why I do this.”

Wright said that in the five-county central New York area around 15,000 people, aged, 18-62, have disabilities. That’s why, he said,  the programs that Move Along offers are so important in the area.

“There’s hundreds of stories of people overcoming their injuries and getting back to their lives,” Wright said. “And that’s why I do what I do.”

Move Along currently offers programs in basketball, sled hockey, hand-cycling, kayaking and tennis. In addition, it has gained funding to start offering mountain biking next summer.

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