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Published on Saturday, October 01, 2011
By BY DAVID OLSON
At age 49, and five months after his toes were amputated, Jim Knight is learning new ways to participate in the sports and physical activities he's done for years.
But the challenge doesn't intimidate Knight, who now uses a wheelchair. Saturday, he was one of more than 700 adults and children with disabilities to participate in the fifth annual DisAbility Sports Festival at Cal State San Bernardino.
"If you plan things out and get over stuff that are obstacles, you can accomplish your goals," Knight said after a day of archery, golf and tennis. "Don't let anything get in your way. I consider that there is no such word as 'can't.'"
The free festival was not a competition, but a way for people with physical and intellectual disabilities to improve their skills in sports or to begin participating in one, said Aaron Moffett, a professor of kinesiology at Cal State San Bernardino and director of the festival.
Studies show that people with disabilities are far less likely to exercise regularly, Moffett said. Many believe their disability is too high a barrier. Part of the problem is people with disabilities are rarely shown on television or in the media as physically active, he said. Seeing hundreds of other people with disabilities practicing sports increases motivation, Moffett said.
"All of a sudden, I see this and say, 'I can be an athlete, even if I have a disability,'" Moffett said.
About 35 coaches, some of them medal winners in the Paraolympics, a sports event for people with disabilities, were on hand to help participants hone skills and techniques.
Knight, who lives in an extended-care area of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Loma Linda, said he learned better ways to hold a bow and shoot an arrow while sitting in a wheelchair. Knight said his coach also hammered in the importance of concentration in archery
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