Wheelchair athletes’ basketball courtship

When basketball center Jeff Blyther twirled his wheelchair around to look for the ball, he discovered he was being guarded by the woman who would soon become the love of his life.

Even in their chairs, she appeared to be a fraction of his size, an image the two joked about immediately, right on the court. But the woman, now named Norma Blyther, had the tenacity of a terrier. She waved her hands in his face and bumped his chair; anything to guard against him getting the coveted leather ball. For 10 years — in the face of his Cerebral Palsy and her double-leg amputation — the Bronx couple have also helped each other guard against brief moments of personal despair and society’s lingering narrow-mindedness about the disabled.

“The game of basketball is what brought us together, it’s a beautiful thing,” said Blyther, 35, after a game the night of Oct. 8. “Norma is a good player, an excellent player. She really understands how to play point guard.”

Blyther’s preference to talk about sports rather than sickness or sentimentality was typical of the 150 players (including a handful of women), who participated in the 2010 NYC Mayor’s Cup. The event was City Hall’s 10th annual wheelchair basketball tournament, held this past weekend at Manhattan College, with additional Saturday games at Horace Mann.

The tournament comprised 10 teams, some with players from New York, others, from all across New Jersey, Long Island and New England. There was even a junior team of young Canadians who traveled thousands of miles to play.

On the rosters of teams such as the New York Rollin’ Knicks, the NEPVA Celtics (New England Paralyzed Veterans of America), the Connecticut Spokebenders and others, were players some experts consider — and who consider themselves — among the best basketball players in America.