The new Rams team won't be any less intense

By Michael Ashcraft --

When Michael Garafola dons his Rams jersey and Rams helmet on Sept. 10, he’ll feel a crush of pride to represent the L.A. team at its season opener in Phoenix. The lineman will be ready for some intense crashing of bodies and crashing of wheelchairs.

“The fact that we’re able to wear Rams jerseys and helmets is incredible,” Garafola told Patch. “To be able to put a Rams jersey on is incredible. I’m super excited.”

Garafola is part of the new NFL-sponsored, all-wheelchair football league. Yes, football for guys in wheelchairs.

“There’s something very alluring about football. It’s a contact-heavy sport,” says wheelchair Rams manager Josh Lucas. “They get knocked over and rolled around. They get up, shake it off and get ready for the next play. When you see them bashing each other, you think they might be able to get hurt. But really they are at no more risk for getting hurt than able bodied players.”

Wheelchair football has existed in America since 1948, but play has been limited to starts and stops by various organizations until the new league gets underway in little more than a week. Organizers hope that with NFL backing, this league, with nine teams nationwide so far, will be here to stay.

The Rams team is co-sponsored by the Westwood-based Angel City Sports. They need volunteers and take donations.

Garafola, 46, teaches adaptive sports at UCLA. It’s a natural job for him because he went more than a decade without sports, from an SUV accident in 1990 that left him with a spinal chord injury and depressed being deprived of athletics.

Then in 2003, he found out about organized adaptive basketball in Los Angeles. He loved basketball and immediately leapt at the opportunity to participate.

“I was blown away,” Garafola says. “I didn’t have any idea that this type of sport existed. These guys were playing and jawing at each other and nobody was feeling sorry for each other. It was sport.”

Football came later.

The essence of the game is the same, though no tackling occurs (it’s touch football). Plays are run, passes or thrown, blocks are done.

Seven players face off against seven on a basketball-court sized field. They have heavy-duty chairs with something of a bumper in front. They crash together and wrangle against each other. Sometimes a guy tumbles over.

The Rams have been practicing Sunday mornings at a cement kickball diamond at Lake Balboa in Van Nuys.

Bart Salgado, the Rams’ quarterback coach, says adaptive sports have transformed his life.

“I’ve always been into football. I was born and raised in Chicago and was a huge Bears fan. I played football in high school,” Salgado says. “I got hurt in 95 and am a bilateral amputee. When I found out there was wheelchair football, I was amazed. The rules are a little bit different, but it’s football with full contact.

"I was ecstatic,” he adds.

Salgado lost his legs working for the railroad. “I thought my life was over,” he says.

Since finding adaptive sports, he’s dedicated his life to helping other disabled people recover the zest for life.

“It’s a huge to help the community,” Salgado says. “One thing I noticed early on is that when guys get hurt, they either get active and decide their life is not over, and there’s guys who decide their life is over and they stay at home doing nothing and stay on their computer all day.”

When he runs across a stay-at-home guy, Salgado invites them to play.

Well, maybe he does a little more than “invite” them. He twists their arms and practically forces them to give it a try. Not always do they fall in love with adaptive sports, but the ones who do get revolutionized.

“They get better in life. They become a little more independent. They get a car. They get a job They go out and meet girls. All that sort of stuff that people take for granted,” Salgado says. “It’s a great feeling. It’s very fulfilling. This guy was stuck in his house and he didn’t know anything is out there. Two or three years later, I see him and he’s doing great. He’s a functioning member of society.”

Michael Ashcraft teaches journalism at the Lighthouse Christian Academyin Santa Monica.