Pete Arballo
Contributor | 2009
Peter Arballo was born in Southern California to Mexican migrants. At the age of 10, his father left, and his mom took on the full responsibility of raising seven children alone. Arballo shared his story with Wheel:Life, including how he was injured and how wheelchair sports saved him from continuing down a dark road. “I found out about wheelchair sports when I went to the hospital to get a checkup one day. While I was waiting, I opened the newspaper to the sports page, and there was a feature about a young lady who had just come back from Winnipeg, Canada, for the Pan American Wheelchair Games where she had won medals in several events. At the bottom of the article, it had a number to call for anyone interested in getting involved in wheelchair sports. I called, and the man I spoke with told me to come to their basketball practice that weekend. I loved it! When I get serious about something, I really get into it — 1000%!”
In the 1968 Paralympic Games held in Tel Aviv, Israel, Pete won gold and set a world record in archery. He is quoted, “While they were putting the medal around me, I said a little prayer asking for the strength to encourage others get involved in wheelchair sports.” Pete was also a member of the 1972 team in Heidelberg, Germany, where he placed fourth in two events.
Pete also played basketball and founded a competitive wheelchair basketball league in California that was able to travel for competitions within California and other states. Pete also got involved with bowling in 1979, and the following year, he went to St. Petersburg, Florida, and won the A Division National Championship. He continued to bowl a lot, and I was winning local tournaments, but didn’t win another national championship until 2000 in Las Vegas. Last month, at the age of 79, he won another national championship in the scratch division.
He was inspired to start working for an organization called Amateur Sports Development USA. The following year, the group went to Hong Kong to play. Over the course of a few years, he took teams to Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, Sweden, and Ecuador. Pete also went to the World Expo in Australia and Spain, where his group put on wheelchair basketball, table tennis, and weightlifting exhibitions. He then went down to Guatemala to teach archery, field events, and basketball. A club in a small town in Romania asked Pete to come run a wheelchair sports camp, so he went there five years in a row. The first year he trained them, they ended up winning their national basketball championships. That experience validated Pete’s efforts.
Pete was chosen as the Hispanic Heritage Month Honoree in 2007. He never stopped giving back to the movement that he felt saved his life!
