the basketball titans at chelsea rec Sports

Saturday practices at the Chelsea Recreation Center transformed 20-year-old Justin Williams from a dejected high-school drop-out to a stand-out basketball player with the motivation to complete his education -- and an aspiration to roll over the competition.

He has the protective glare and defensive aggression becoming for a big man on the court, but he’s not the only player who plays with intensity on the co-ed New York Rolling Fury — a local youth wheelchair basketball team. They were scrimmaging April 12 on W. 25th Street during a final practice before the upcoming national championship tournament in Louisville, Kentucky. Hopes are high that the team will do well upon its return to national competition, but Williams and his teammates are competing for more than a trophy in the near future.

Williams was using an electric wheelchair and in a slump when he met Coach Christopher Bacon a year ago. Then he joined the team and began to get serious about his life.

“It just motivates me like: ‘Alright, I wanna go back to school.’ I have a reason, you know? It made me feel comfortable in my wheelchair. I just take a lot of pride in putting on my jersey,” said Williams.

He returned to school with a focus on maintaining the grades that would make him eligible for Division 1 college sports. Five other members of the Rolling Fury have moved on to college competition since 2012, according to the team’s website.

“It’s exhilarating and I can definitely prove what I got,” said Breanna Clark, 13.

Wheelchair basketball shifted focus for the adolescents from disabilities to ability, according to Sean Clark, an assistant coach who is Breanna’s father. Bacon describes the Rolling Fury as the “segue to college.” However, on the court, the squad works on getting physical with opponents in order to force them to play their brand of B-ball.

Breanna Clark whips through the paint and, with a quick turning pivot, knocks into opponents in order to contest shots. The team’s offense relies on the classic “pick and roll,” whereby one offensive player blocks the defender of a teammate with the ball before turning in the opposite direction to receive a potential pass or rebound. On each side of the court, the Fury doesn’t shirk physicality. They move fast but are still honing their communication skills in order to balance strategy with intensity.

“The reason I crash into people is because the less they move the less opportunities they get to make baskets and also it’s pretty much all you got to do,” said Clark.

For years the team — then called the Long Island Lightning — accommodated youth from Long Island proper until three years ago when Bacon realized that New York City was home to many kids who could benefit from the program and further the team’s success along the way. He then made an arrangement for the West Side practice facility with Parks Department officials. In exchange, his team instructs youth interested in trying the sport, though there were no new takers on April 12. The team also has a weekly practice in Suffolk County, Long Island.

The arrangement helps stabilize his roster, which in recent years has vacillated in size from having enough members for several teams to not featuring enough to compete in last year’s tournament.

Only three players returned this season, but Bacon reckons that with the influx of six Manhattan kids, his team could win the NIT division, the lower 16-team bracket of the 32-team national tournament even though 2015 was a “rebuilding year,” he said. The Fury were fifth in the nation in 2012 and 2013, he added.

Winning comes often enough for the team, but success comes most consistently in others ways. As the only youth basketball program in the city, a new opportunity arrives every Saturday to the Chelsea Recreation Facility for local disabled youth who might not know that their physical condition enables them to play an exciting, physical sport. Donations allow the team to compete against teams from across the country as well as help secure athletic wheelchairs — which cost from $1,000 to $3,000 — for players.

Sean Clark said that since Breanna began with the team, her grades, self-confidence and ambition have increased. She wants to become a Para-Olympian, but focus for now remains on taking it to the competition in Kentucky.

“For a lot of kids it gives them hope, a new way of seeing things that maybe they wouldn’t have had being a wheelchair user,” he said.