2008/2009

By Mike DeYoung

The 2008/2009 quad rugby season was the most successful season of the Northridge rugby organization in many years. With Greg Edwards as coach and Mike Doom as assistant coach, the King's were able to come in 5^th place at the Division I championships in Louisville, Kentucky. This was accomplished by the starting lineup of Justin Patterson 2.5, Lee Mercado 2.0, David Willsie 2.0, and Chet Miller 1.5 due to his half-point reduction because of his age. The secondary lineup consisted of Martin Florez, Tim Crane, Joey Mearig, Shawn Fluke and Terry Luxembourger, self-proclaimed oldest D-1 player ever at 62 years old.

If the Northridge Kings were to nominate a player of the year, it would be Lee Mercado from Pomona, California. Lee has become an outstanding player and team leader. He was fortunate enough to be invited to try out for the 2009 American Zonal Championship. As expected, Lee made the team and will be representing the USA in Argentina. Lee continues to improve with leaps and bounds and it is a large part of the Kings success last season. He will continue to improve and lead our team along with Team USA to bigger and better achievements. I look forward to seeing what he does next season. But before I get ahead of myself, let's look back to last season.

Earlier tournaments in the season did not represent the Northridge Kings well. The postseason Kings looked nothing like the preseason Kings. Their first couple tournaments were a disaster. But as the season went on, communication, endurance, and skill improved and the Northridge Kings began getting better and better. By the time that the Kings made it to Sectionals, they were good enough to play in the championship game against San Diego Sharp. They did not win this game but second place was good enough to get them into Division I. This just goes to show you what the true definition of a team is. When a group of individuals can come together and work through difficulties and challenges presented to them and finally come out the other end accomplishing their goals. This proves how valuable the sport of quad rugby is to people with disabilities. There are so many unseen life experiences and lessons that are learned throughout a single season that it is hard for one to grasp.

As expected, Nationals was a very challenging tournament. At this point the Northridge Kings were quite familiar with each other's playing ability and comfortable with each other on the court. With team leaders Lee Mercado and David Willsie running the court, an extremely hard weekend led to the King's taking 5^th place in Division I. Hopefully next season the Kings will be back and will further improve their position and ranking with the USQRA.

Additionally, members of the Northridge organization have started a nonprofit organization called Disabled Sports and Fitness Foundation. Their goal is to further spread the word of the importance of sports and fitness to the disabled community. The foundation is in its infancy, but will hopefully someday positively affect the lives of many newly disabled individuals by teaching them that life is not over when disabled, there is just a new path to follow. To learn more about this organization please visit www.dsffonline.org.