Peter Arballo
2009
Peter Arballo was born in Southern California to Mexican migrants. At the age of ten, his father left, and his mother 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, from 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 recalled, “While they were putting the medal around me, I said a little prayer asking for the strength to encourage others to 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 traveled for competitions within the state and across the country. In 1979, he took up bowling, and the following year he went to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he won the A Division National Championship. He continued to bowl frequently, winning local tournaments, and captured another national championship in 2000 in Las Vegas. Decades later, at the age of 79, he won yet another national championship in the scratch division.
Inspired by his passion for adaptive sports, Pete began working with an organization called Amateur Sports Development USA. The following year, the group went to Hong Kong to compete, and over the next few years, he took teams to Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, Sweden, and Ecuador. Pete also participated in the World Expo in Australia and Spain, where his group presented wheelchair basketball, table tennis, and weightlifting exhibitions.
He later traveled to Guatemala to teach archery, field events, and basketball. A club in a small town in Romania invited Pete to lead a wheelchair sports camp, and he went there five years in a row. The first year he trained them, his athletes won their national basketball championships — a moment that validated Pete’s life’s work and passion for empowering others.
Pete was honored as the Hispanic Heritage Month Honoree in 2007. He never stopped giving back to the movement that he always said had saved his life.