Column: Jr Bulls repeat as Illinois High School Association’s wheelchair basketball state champions. ‘We try to get out and go.’

Drew Beutel has mobility issues due to a disability that limits his walking, but that hasn’t stopped him from developing into a pretty good athlete.

A Neuqua Valley sophomore, this kid has wheels — figuratively and literally.

So do his six teammates on the Jr Bulls, a Synergy Adaptive Athletics wheelchair basketball team offered by the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association.

“We try to get out and go,” Beutel said of the team’s strategy. “It helps to be faster and smarter. You try to outsmart your opponent, and it’s a big deal setting picks to stop an opponent’s chair and free up a teammate.”

The Jr Bulls swept all four opponents on Saturday, March 11 in Champaign to win the Illinois High School Association’s wheelchair basketball state championship for the second straight year.

The decisive win in the round-robin event was a 56-42 decision against a Lincoln-Way area team which took the Jr Bulls to two overtimes the previous year. That followed lopsided wins over teams from Peoria, Chicago and the northern suburbs.

The physical action is not for the faint of heart, with each game played on a full-size court featuring two 20-minute halves.

This was the 12th time in the 20-year history of the event the Jr Bulls have won.

Beutel is the team’s point guard this season, his second since coming up to the varsity after beginning the sport at age 5.

Beutel developed transverse myelitis, inflammation of the spinal cord, shortly after receiving his 15-month immunization shot. For a number of months, he was totally paralyzed, according to his father, John.

“He has better use of his legs and can ambulate a little bit with crutches and braces,” John Beutel said. “From the waist up, he’s 100%, even more so. Because of his lower disability, his upper body is very strong.”

Curtis Lease, a four-time All-American in the sport at Illinois from 1990-94 who played on three U.S. national teams, joined Jr Bulls as an assistant coach in 2001 when he moved to the area.

A one leg amputee since a lawn mower accident at age 2, Lease has been the head coach since 2018, when he scaled back his own playing career.

Two high school freshmen on the team are center Jonathan Parris, an Elburn resident who attends Kaneland, and South Elgin’s Nellie Meinhardt. Both have spina bifida.

Meinhardt, who walks with crutches, started playing at age 6. She also enjoys weight lifting.

“I’m strong in ball handling and I love the sport,” she said. “Mostly because of all the people I’ve met and friendships I’ve developed on my team and with opposing players I’ve met. ”

Parris, who can walk short distances, likes the physicality. He would like to try sled hockey next.

The team also includes senior twins Jeffrey and Matthew Birnbaum of Clarendon Hills, Yuriy Khudyk of Mount Prospect and Tessa Pate, a middle school student from Lombard.

“Drew (Beutel) and Jeffrey (Birnbaum) have been our leading scorers most of the year,” Lease said. “Jonathan (Parris) has picked up his defense and everybody’s court awareness has gotten much better.

“I try to prepare them for success, both on and off the court.”

Lease said he doesn’t take it easy on them, either.

“I didn’t play until college and didn’t even think I needed a wheelchair since I grew up with a prosthetic leg,” he said. “I was coached as an athlete. It wasn’t, ‘Hey, here’s the heart and hustle award.’

“I got what-for if I wasn’t doing something right.”

His players seem to share that attitude.

The team held a fundraiser this year, bringing extra chairs and taking on Timothy Christian’s basketball team in a wheelchair game.

“We spotted them 20 points and were up by 20 at halftime,” Lease said. “You learn to appreciate the skill level.”

John Beutel does that with his son, spending a lot of time at Jr Bulls practices in his own chair, working with the team.

The family learned of the sport by attending a disability day sponsored by Chicago’s NBA team when Drew was 4.

“They had some empty chairs,” John Beutel said. “Drew sits down and starts pushing it around. The rest is history. I can’t keep him out of a chair.

‘It’s amazing how these kids are able to control their muscles just to play the sport. I enjoy getting in there and trying to understand what they’re doing, what the tricks are to stop an opponent.”

It’s just like a travel sport, pointed out John Beutel, who took his son to Wisconsin-Whitewater last weekend to catch the action in the NCAA Wheelchair Tournament.

“It was amazing to see some of the kids he’s played against at some point playing at that level,” John Beutel said. “The skill set is unbelievable. The game is so fast and really exciting.”

He has asked his son just one thing.

“I don’t care where he goes to college,” John said. “Just keep that smile he always has every time he gets out on that court. I hope he keeps it however long he continues to play basketball.”