A Brief History About Us

Wheelchair tennis in the Grand Rapids area began in 1979.  Luanne Westenbroek, a tennis enthusiast herself, had heard about wheelchair tennis being played in California and wanted to get a group of local wheelchair athletes interested.

With Luanne’s enthusiasm, she managed to recruit Bob O’Connell who volunteered to teach tennis to wheelchair users at Ada Park, a wheelchair accessible park.  Bob started out with three very curious athletes – Tom Kelderhouse and Lee Montgomery, both who had never played tennis before, and Tom Partanen, who played tennis prior to his spinal cord injury. 

Because this group had grown and their tennis skills had improved, Luanne founded the Grand Rapids Wheelchair Tennis Foundation in 1980 and began to raise funds to send the rapidly growing group of tennis players to various tournaments throughout the United States. Grand Rapids hosted the first USTA Indoor National tournament in 1991.

 The foundation also started in 1986 a junior wheelchair sports program which began with the help of Beverly Nickels.  This camp is still a FREE 5-day camp experience which houses approximately 70 campers overnight on the beautiful campus of Grand Valley State University.  Physically challenged youths, between the ages of 7-18, learn basketball, archery, tennis, swimming, track events, aerobics, weight lifting, sled hockey and more.  Many of our instructors are adult athletes who use a chair themselves and play on the adult teams. 

As the foundation grew, it was decided to change the name to the Grand Rapids Wheelchair Sports Association to meet more of the growing recreational needs of the Grand Rapids Area community and to offer more of an opportunity for other sports also. 

The year 2007, marks the 27^th anniversary of our organization and the Grand Rapids Wheelchair Sports Association is proud to offer adult and junior basketball programs, adult and junior tennis programs, road racing, hand cycling, a 5-day sports camp, and host adapted water ski clinics.