Arinn Young is a 19-year-old center for Canada's national women's wheelchair basketball team who hopes to compete in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. She started playing basketball at age 5 but suffered two serious knee injuries at age 14 that ended her ability to play standing up. She took up wheelchair basketball during her recovery and found she had a talent for it. Young made her international debut with Canada's senior women's team at the 2014 World Wheelchair Basketball Championship, where they won gold. She is now preparing for national team tryouts to qualify for the Paralympics in September.

1. 22 | Edmonton Woman March/April 2016
22 | Edmonton Woman March/April 2016
At 19, Alberta’s Arinn Young is well on her way. Already on
Canada’s national women’s wheelchair basketball team for the past
18 months, the young centre is shooting to go to the Pan American
Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this September. She is the
second youngest basketball player on the national team and the
only Albertan. The final Canadian contingent for the Games will
be selected after national tryouts in Toronto at the end of March.
Twelve national team members will be selected, with seven alter-
nates. Odds are, Young will be on her way to Rio.
Young picked up her first basketball at the age of five, and started
playing organized b-ball in school.“Her passion for the sport was
very apparent at a young age,”says her father, Rick. A high school
Arinn Young:
HELL ON WHEELS
The St-Albert born basketball
centre is shooting for the
Pan American
Paralympic Games
By Gary Gee
star basketball player in his own right, he and Arinn’s mother en-
couraged their daughter’s passion for the sport, travelling with her
on road trips wherever she could play.“My Dad introduced me to
basketball and I fell in love with everything you can do in the sport.
I can outplay him now,”she giggles.
Also a track star, Young’s talent and desire put her on a path to
be considered for a college basketball scholarship by high school.
But at 14, two serious injuries to her knees seemed to spell the end
of her hoop dreams. One injury to her left knee was career-ending.
“I heard it pop and I looked at my coach and I knew I was done,”
says Young. During her recovery she came out to play wheelchair
basketball and took to it right away. On the basketball court that
day, Young says she thought that a career in wheelchair basketball
might not be so far-fetched. Her friend Max introduced her to the
sport since his daughter, who has spina bifida, also played.“He
brought me out one day and strapped me in a chair really tight so I
didn’t fall out.”Young says she loved the hard and fast competition,
where upper body strength is crucial.“It can be tiring pushing the
chair, but I love everything about the sport and I don’t think I’ll quit
until I can’t push that chair.”
Able to walk normally, Young is classified as a 4.5 point player.
She began playing for the Edmonton Inferno in 2012, placing
fourth in the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League Women’s
National Championship in Richmond, British Columbia, and finish-
ing first in the Canadian Women’s Championship in Edmonton in
2013. She joined the U25 national team in 2013, and made her
international debut with the senior women’s team as the youngest
player on the team at the 2014 Women’s World Wheelchair Basket-
ball Championship in Toronto in July 2014, winning a gold medal.
“Arinn’s a very gifted player and one of our bright young players in
our program. We are very lucky to have her,”says national Coach Bill
Johnson. Today, as she prepares for national team tryouts – which
are required for every Pan American Paralympic Games – Young is
also in her first year of a five-year wheelchair basketball scholarship
from the University of Alabama. She is also eligible for another five
years of education in Canada under the scholarship. Nicknamed
“Juice”for an incident in a game where she had a sugar high from
a drink and kept taking the ball away while spinning around the
court, Young says wheelchair basketball is the best thing that ever
happened to her, despite her two agonizing knee injuries that
only allow her to walk.“I feel my journey was to play wheelchair
basketball. My life is now 100 times better than it would have been.
I’ve made friends from all over the world. The wheelchair basketball
community welcomes people with open arms,”she says.
Photo: Wheelchair Basketball Canada
Follow Arinn Young’s basketball trajectory at www.
wheelchairbasketball.ca/players/arinn-young/.
Arinn Young made her international debut with the senior women’s
team as their youngest player at the 2014 Women’s World Wheelchair
Basketball Championship in Toronto.