In a California prison, wheelchair basketball teaches men to find another way

What happened

At California Medical Facility, a state prison in Vacaville for men including those with physical disabilities, incarcerated men who use wheelchairs and able-bodied men play wheelchair basketball on one team, The Marshall Project reported. According to the report, the program launched publicly in late 2022 and picks players for their willingness to be supportive teammates instead of solely for athletic ability. Its creator, Jeremiah Holland, told the outlet that inside prison, “imagination contracts.”

The game punishes impulsivity, The Marshall Project reported: when a defender blocks your path you cannot sidestep, so you stop and find another way. Larry Roach, now the team’s incarcerated “inside” coach, and Landon Jackson were boyhood friends until gang lines divided them; Roach recalls shooting at Jackson in their late teens. When they met years later in a CMF hallway, they hugged and Roach apologized, according to the report. Jackson had joined the team to help friends in wheelchairs get through the yard. “This gym told you address it so it doesn’t get violent,” he said. Jackson was released in 2024. Roach came home in mid-October after more than two decades inside, and every coach came to his homecoming party.

Lavonte McDowell, who learned to live with paraplegia on his own behind bars, stopped answering to his old street name soon after joining, The Marshall Project reported. Released in 2024, he has since played for the Los Angeles Clippers Chairmen. “I took from so many people,” he told the outlet. Co-captain Quentin Murphy, who faces a decades-long sentence, called the gym “a place of peace.”

The report also lays out the limits. Volunteer coaches who drive nearly an hour have been turned away by searches and lockdowns, and at times by staffing decisions. The state corrections department said staffing and training needs, along with emergencies, have sometimes required changes. On Sept. 30, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Second Chance Sports Act, directing the prison system to plan an expansion of sports programming; according to The Marshall Project, participants will reportedly be able to earn credits toward early release.

Our reflection

Sit with who is in that gym. Men who use wheelchairs, some of whom face decades more. Men like McDowell, who says plainly that he took from people. Outside this story are families still carrying that harm, and a good season does not settle it. A contracted imagination is a man shrunk to the worst role anyone gave him, until he believes it.

Mark 2 tells of a man who could not walk and four friends who refused to leave him outside. The house was packed, so they dug through the roof. Mark says Jesus saw their faith. Then he scandalized the room: before a word about the man’s legs, he forgave his sins. He went first to the paralysis nobody could see.

I see that order in Vacaville. Jackson joined to help friends in wheelchairs get across a yard, in a gym where you learn to speak up before it turns violent. Then came an apology in a hallway to a man you once shot at, which is what repentance looks like when it costs you. Jackson’s hug was grace. Roach’s apology was truth. A man coming home needs both.

Be honest about the rest of us. Most of us are expert sidesteppers. Jesus said contempt for a brother already carries murder in it (Matthew 5:21 to 22), so plenty of people in good pews have their own Landon Jackson: someone we wounded, a hallway we avoid. The wheelchair takes the sidestep away. So does the Holy Spirit, and it is mercy when he does.

This kind of change is not mysterious. Choose people for character and hand incarcerated men real responsibility. Keep volunteers coming when the gate stays shut, and refuse to cut people loose at release, the way these coaches filled Roach’s homecoming party. A new law may widen the door. No law drives an hour to a prison gate. That is why We The Revolt stays beside young people for twelve months after they come home, when risk runs highest and support usually ends.

If there is a prison near you, find out who drives to that gate and help them keep going, and pray for these men by name while you do. If a young person you love is coming home, do not let the first year be the year everyone disappears.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Mark 2:5

Source: The Marshall Project, “In Prison, Wheelchair Basketball Offers a Chance at Reinvention”