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▼ rAHALYMrlCSParalympian from Belleville goes for gold'98 Paralympic Gamas• Where — Atlanta, Ga.• When — Aug. 15-25.• Size — 3,500 competitors from 120 countries.• Competitors — Athletes with physical or visual impairments represent four international federations — theblind, paraplegics and quadriplegics, people with cerebral palsy and amputees.• Organization — TheParalympic^ are recognized by the International Olympic Committee and governed by the International Paralympic Committee.• Origin — The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960 and have been held every Olympic year since.basketball player at Illinois. She is majoring in broadcast journalism and hopes to find aJana Stump, Belleville, is scheduled to competein the wheelchair basketball event.The sport uses the international rules: 20-minute halves, 30-second shot clock, five fouls (fouls are called when wheelchairs collide).A team cannot play five players at the same time who total more than 14 points in the classification system — 5,4,3, 2,1 points — with five points for the least handicapped person.**f*«s»*0t«*«4I*t. iI4II4a•4Ia.• *Jana Stump to compete as member of basketball teamBy HAROLD BECHARDThe Salina JournalShaquille O’Neal, Scottie Pip-pen, John Stockton and Jana Stump are four athletes with one goal in mind these days — a gold medal.O’Neal, Pippen and Stockton are household names as members of the United States Olympic men’s basketball team commonly known as Dream Team III.Stump is also an Olympian. The 21-year-old Belleville native is a member of the U.S.Women’s Paralympic basketball team which will compete at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta on Aug. 15-25.More than 3,500 athletes with physical disabilities from 120 countries will compete in the 10th Paralympics, which will be approximately one-third the size of the Olympics which opened Friday night in Atlanta.Jana will head to Atlanta next month as the youngestmember of the U.S. team. She plays guard on defense and the wing on offense.The road to Atlanta wasn’t an easy one for Stump, who excelled in many activities as a youngster growing up in Belleville.As a freshman, Jana was the first player off the bench for the Belleville High School basketball team, which finished third in the 1990 Class 3A State Tournament in Hutchinson. She set track records in the hurdles while in junior high school, was a baton twirler, enjoyed dance and gymnastics and played softball.“She was very active as a youngster,” said her father, Jerry, a high school computer teacher in Belleville.But Jana’s world took a tragic turn on May 23, 1990, the final day of the school year in Belleville.Jana was riding in a friend’s car when it hit a dirt bank at a railroad crossing and became airborne. The landing broke the car seat and Stump’s back. The accident injured the fourth, fifth and sixth vertebrae of the thorax and left Jana paralyzed from the chest down.“Just an inch higher and it would have affected her arms and upper body,” said Jerry, -who will attend the Paralympics with his wife, Kathleen, and youngest daughter Erin. “She would have been a quadriplegic.”It was, as Jerry said, “a devastating experience,” but reality didn’t sink in for Jana untilthe 1990-91 school year began.“It was very difficult,” Jana said. “I can remember after the first couple of nights I told one of my friends *1 guess sports is out.’“It was difficult to go back to school, sit on the sidelines andwatch everyone else. I think it all finally hit me about a year after the accident.”Jana was hospitalized for six weeks in Salina before being transferred to the National Spinal Cord Injury Center at Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo.*The hospital has had such high-profile patients as former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, horse racing jockey Willie Shoemaker and New York Jets football player Dennis Byrd.Doctors at the hospital later referred Jana to the University of Illinois which is known for its wheelchair athletic programs. She was recruited by the Illini and had her out-of-state tuition waived by the school.Jana, who also competes in wheelchair races, has been one of the mainstays on the Illinois team.She has been a starter for three years and was selected the most valuable player on the team after the 1995-96 season which saw her average 12 points a game for the Illini which finished third in the National Wheelchair Basketball Championships. Illinois was one of the few teams there that was strictly a college team.Jana’s expertise in the wheelchair game received plenty of attention. She was on an original list of 120 names which was cut to 20 last year. Twelve players and two alternates were then selected after the 1996 season ended in March.It is quite a thrill,” Jana said. “I didn’t expect to get this far. When I made the final cut, I was overwhelmed.”Jana has been more than ajob in television.Four years ago — and just two years after the car accident — Jana realized a life-long dream by competing in the Kansas Young Women of the Year contest in Belleville (formerly known as the Kansas Junior Miss Pageant).Jana won the competition in one of the more emotional moments ever in the pageant andlater won the Spirit of Junior Miss Award at the national • pageant in Mobile, Ala. ;“It’s probably the greatest,; thrill I’ve had yet,” Jana said.!' “There aren’t words to describe how I felt. Ever since I was a lit-i: tie girl and our family became a, host home, I wanted to be in it.”:Now, Jana’s eyes are on the gold in Atlanta. She expects! teams from Canada, Australia and Germany to be the toughest ’ competition for Team USA in : the eight-game conmetition.
Newspaper Details
Salina Journal
Salina, Kansas, US
Sun, Jul 21, 1996
Page 20
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 Jan 2020
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