The USA Wheelchair Football League held its annual championship game at the Automobile Building in Fair Park as the Dallas Cowboys took on the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs.
The USA Wheelchair Football League (USAWFL) was created in 2020 as part of a partnership between the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Move United, and the NFL’s Salute to Service initiative. The league currently consists of 14 teams — 13 representing NFL cities and one in Birmingham, Alabama — with a minimum of three military veterans per squad.
“What we do at the foundation is we ensure that military service members and veterans and their families, because they stood for us, [and] they’re the ones that stand up for all of us, that they continue to have successful and stable futures after they take off the uniform,” Meg Harrell, chief program officer for the Bob Woodruff Foundation, told The Dallas Express. “We have partnered with the NFL … for six years to invest their Salute to Service dollars. … One of those Salute to Service investments was to Move United, and Move United … instituted and expanded the first-ever USA Wheelchair Football League.”
Move United is an organization that facilitates adaptive competitive athletics for those with disabilities, especially wounded military veterans. The organization has 70 adaptive sports across 46 states and more than 200 chapters nationwide, with many veterans involved.
“We use sport as kind of that model to show Americans, ‘If you can do things like football, if you can do things like golf, you can work in the workplace, you can participate in society,” Move United executive director Glenn Merry said. “… Tying in the veteran component is super important to us. We’re the leading sports organization for adapted sports for veterans, and the partnership with the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the Salute to Service grant in partnership with the NFL has allowed us, over the last four years, to increase participation in wheelchair football from not existing to 625 athletes.”
Some veterans, like Dallas’ Antoine Gray, had huge aspirations in the sports world before their injuries.
“I used to box before I got injured,” Gray told The Dallas Express. “I thought I would be a professional athlete, [and] that was taken away. Now, being able to compete on the highest level of the sport, it’s pretty much the same thing as being a professional.”
For others, like Kansas City’s Matthew Scholten, the USAWFL and Move United are their first experiences in competitive sports but bring a much-needed sense of camaraderie that makes it easier to return to civilian life.
“I started playing a little intramural in the Army, but my real foray into competitive sports was after I got injured,” Scholten told The Dallas Express. “It brought back the camaraderie. It’s the same thing as in the Army — you’ve got that team, a group of guys you deal with all these things with — it’s back again. That showed me, too, that I can do these things. I’m not stuck on my couch. I’m not stuck watching TV or whatever. I can go out and train and price and get better and competitive.”
Each football game is played on a 60-yard pavement field with first downs at each 15-yard line and midfield. Each team plays with seven players on the field at a time, trying to get 15 yards or a touchdown before deciding to punt or go for it on fourth down.
In past years, the USAWFL has held its championship game in the same city that hosted the Super Bowl but decided to bring the match to a city that abundantly supports adaptive sports programs.
“What we look for is a venue and a host organization,” Merry explained. “Sometimes that’s one of our teams, like Dallas, the adaptive sports community here is hosting it. As we move forward, I think we’re going to see it move to a place where there’s an adapted sports community that’s really behind football and what we’re trying to do here.”
Dallas won Tuesday’s game 27-14. Interestingly, the previous league champions have all lined up perfectly with the NFL’s Super Bowl champions.
While the Dallas Cowboys are obviously not playing in the Super Bowl, does that mean the NFC rival San Francisco 49ers are destined to win their sixth Super Bowl on Sunday?
