Wordle, smashes, and pink ponies: Meet the USA wheelchair rugby team that finds strength in erasing gender barriers
The men of USA Wheelchair Rugby did not take it easy on Sarah Adam when the first-ever woman to play on the team at a Paralympic Games had her first try out.
Quite the opposite. They put her at the front of the line and asked her to race a mile with them.
“I thought I was being pranked because I was like, 'I'm not fast enough', but it was the fastest mile I've ever done out of straight fear being in the front," said Adam, who finished third in the race. "That was pretty terrifying."
Her memorable first training session in Colorado Springs also involved getting a big hit from one of her new teammates. Adam loved it, and held her own.
"My role is to be a ball carrier and you're going to have to hit me to stop me. And they figured that out pretty quickly," she said. "They didn't take it easy from the get-go and I appreciate that. I just want to be seen as another athlete out there quite frankly."
Adam has since shed all fear of her male teammates. In fact, the tables have now turned.
“She dusts us now,” team captain and three-time Paralympic medallist Chuck Aoki revealed. “I have the fear.”
Olympics.com spoke to the USA teammates to discover how the team dynamics and on-court strategy changed when the first female player joined the squad, why they relish the aggressive nature of the sport nicknamed “murderball”, and what songs they are belting out in the locker room.
Smash, hit, boom: A love of full-contact sports that crosses gender lines
Adam was a versatile athlete since her early days, playing on various teams in school and softball in college.
Having grown up with two brothers, the rough nature of the team sports she chose never intimidated her.
"Growing up with an older brother, I was always playing sports with him," Adam said. "We were playing football in the family room and tackling each other and wrestling, so always the physicality."
Her love for full-contact sports did not diminish when Adam was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2016. While the doctors told her to take it easy, Adam was eager to show everyone that she could still take a hit – and strike back, too.
Wheelchair rugby, known for its aggressive play and power, proved the perfect stage to do that.
"It's certainly the going in full contact, hitting people and breaking down those stereotypes of what does it mean to be a person with a disability," Adam said about what attracted her to the sport. "With my MS, I'm constantly told to be careful and take it easy and don't overdo it. And in rugby I can show, I don't have to do that. I don't have to be limited by the circumstances that my body puts me in. I can go out there and be just as rough and competitive and go take a hit or two."
It is an attitude she shares with her teammates, including team veteran Aoki. The first-ever player on USA's wheelchair rugby team to compete at four Paralympic Games, Aoki realised the sport was a perfect match for him after getting flipped over in his first training session.
"I love the contact. Where I'm from in the United States, ice hockey is a very big sport, which is a very physical sport. American football is a very good sport for crash, boom. And I've had a disability since I was a kid, so I never got to play those sports. And the very first practice I showed up to, I was like 15 years old. I was very skinny. And they looked at me and said, 'Do you want to play?' And I said, 'Yeah, of course I want to play'," Aoki recalled.
"They did not take it easy on me. They beat me up, crashed me. It was a gym where one side-line just had a wall. There was no space, so I just got hit into the wall over and over again and just fell in love with it. I had never felt so alive playing a sport.
"To this day, it's still that much fun. When you're disabled, you can sometimes very much be put in a box of like, 'Oh, be careful. Don't do this, don't do that'. And this is a sport where it's like, no, just go out there and be your most physical, intense self. And that's rewarded, and that's such a cool thing to get to do."
Chuck Aoki and Sarah Adam in action during a preliminary round match against Canada at Paris 2024.
While a full-contact playing style does not scare off any Team USA players, male or female, Aoki said the team’s approach to the game has changed since Adam joined the squad.
Strategy is one of Adam’s biggest strengths – “using my brain to outsmart the guys” as she calls it – and that has carried over into a more strategised game plan as well.
Her speed is another key asset.
"What Sarah has brought on a pure physical level is just speed. Just blazing speed. I think that's the first thing anybody sees when they're going to see Sarah in the quarters just flying up and down the court passing people," Aoki said. "Other teams have tried maybe to say, 'OK, let's go after her a little bit'. And then Sarah blows by them and it's like, 'OK, never mind, we can't do that. She's just too fast'.
"Myself and some other players who are more kind of just boom, crash into people, smash type thing, we've allowed us to do that a bit more and be even more aggressive as a team because Sarah is just so fast and, quite frankly, can clean up for some of the mistakes we may make when we're being aggressive."
Behind the scenes with a female athlete on a male-dominated team
Cleaning up mistakes on the court is not the only place where Adam shows she is tidier than her teammates. While the wheelchair rugby ace does not have many pet peeves about her Paralympic teammates, there is one thing that does irk her sometimes.
"Chuck tends to be a little messy, if we're being honest. I'm a very organised, punctual...," she starts before Aoki incredulously jumps in, "Just me?"
Adam is adamant: "You're the worst offender."
Sometimes, admittedly, the mess is a mutual effort, and it is the competitiveness between the players that is to blame.
"The wall on our dorm that has been just beat to heck because we've been crashing into it trying to make crazy basketball shots off the ceiling would probably say we're competitive," Aoki agreed.
It is not all "crash and boom" on Team USA, however. The 12 wheelchair rugby players also enjoy some quiet hobbies.
Wordle in the morning is a team tradition. Aoki’s personal downtime preferences are puzzles and crosswords.
“I like to strike a balance. I like to play a very physical, intensive sport, but I've actually been working on a puzzle in the [Paralympic] Village," the team captain said. "It's so important when you play such a physical sport is to have a bit of a release."
Singing is another activity that the teammates enjoy together when they need to release some tension.
"We have a speaker going with us everywhere we go," Adam said. "There's a very loud speaker, so you always know where Team USA is, and the guys are always singing."
The playlist is mostly female artists with Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” dominating the squad's Paris 2024 soundtrack. It has also become Aoki's go-to singing option.
"He sings a really good "Pink Pony Club". You can't deny it," Adam said. "Every now and then he pulls out a good voice."
"I have no musical talent other than that I really enjoy singing," Aoki interjected to lower expectations of a future musical career. "But I'm horrendous at it."
A quest for gold and more, with some laughs thrown in
Team USA has finished on the wheelchair rugby podium at the last three Paralympic Games. The gold medal, however, has escaped them since Beijing 2008.
Aoki, a two-time silver and one-time bronze medallist, is hoping Paris 2024 will end the 16-year golden drought.
"I think this can be the team just because the structure of the team as a whole is so different. After Tokyo we really underwent a total change," he said.
"That is really what's put us in a position to be successful, along with having some incredible new talent. We've got six first-time Paralympians, including Sarah Adam, the first-ever woman to make the Paralympic team, and she's going to be just a dynamic part of our success. She's really an incredible player. I'm very proud of her."
Adam is one of seven women at Paris 2024 who are vying for gold in the wheelchair rugby open tournament. Denmark and Japan also have female players on the squad. Australia and Germany each have two.
Seeing these players take hits alongside the men is something Adam hopes will show more women that they can do it, too.
"To be the first female is an incredible honour. I worked really hard to be able to have a spot on this team and work my way up to to being in some of the main lines," Adam said. "To be a part of that in a sport that's typically considered male-dominated is really important because we need more females. This has been an incredible outlet for me. I've played a tonne of sports, and this is one of the favourite ones that I've ever played and I'm just so glad that not seeing a lot of females out there didn't stop me from being able to join in and compete. I hope that other females get to see that and they decide that they're going to join in as well."
And while the boys on a wheelchair rugby team can be messy, for Adam, there is an aspect to being surrounded by male teammates that more than makes up for it.
"They're just brutally honest with you," Adam said about what she loves most about playing with men. "I think there's something really fun about that, being able to give it and take it and hold each other accountable in funny ways and some humour and some competitiveness."