Wheelchair basketball took Reid Richard around the world. Now, he’s coaching the next generation

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As a child, Reid Richard played all kinds of sports, including soccer and baseball. But he says nothing really captured his attention.

That all changed the day an adaptive sports demonstration came to his elementary school in Fillmore, Sask., about 100 kilometres south-east of Regina.

"They brought in all the chairs. I was able to actually see the sport and get in," Richard said. "It felt like the first time I was in the chair, it was a sport I could actually not just participate in, but actually succeed in."

For a kid who often felt like he couldn’t contribute as much as he wanted in able-bodied sports, the discovery was exhilarating. He couldn't get enough of it.

"My parents would get sick of me because I'd be sitting in my [wheelchair basketball] chair at home without, like, the wheels on, just because I like sitting in my chair so much," Richard said. "But it still gives me that joy today."

The 31-year-old was born missing the tibia bones in his lower legs. His parents were faced with a difficult choice: attempt to insert metal rods into his legs and face years of painful surgeries, or proceed with amputation.

They chose amputation. Richard agrees it was the right thing to do.

"I'd say it was definitely never something I had to come to terms with because it was kind of, 'this is me, this is who I've always been,'" he said. "I just have to look at things a different way and find my own way of doing things a lot of the time."

Wheelchair basketball took Regina's Reid Richard