Tom Brown
2000
In the late 60’s, Tom Brown ventured from Colorado to enroll at the University of Illinois and immediately became an athlete to be reckoned with on the famous Gizz Kids Track & Field teams. Tom also developed a vaunted reputation as a stand-out wheelchair basketball player. He led the Gizz Kids to the National Wheelchair Basketball Championship in 1969 and 1971. Tom set NWBA scoring records which stood for more than thirty years and haven’t been broken to date, including the single game scoring record of 39 points.
Although Brown was a premier NWBA basketball player, he was just as talented in National Wheelchair Athletic Association (now Wheelchair Sports USA) competition. In 1968 he was captain of the Gizz Kids team that won the team trophy at the 12th National Wheelchair Games on the Bulova campus in Jackson Heights, New York. Among many of Tom’s first place finishes and record setting races was the Class III 100 yard dash record of 19.0 seconds in 1969, which at the time was a world record. It was one of the closest and most exciting races ever held on the Bulova Track, which was a parking lot that included manhole covers! The race featured the top track athletes from across the country at the time.
Every Illinois team that Tom was a member of won National Wheelchair Games team championships. At that time, amputees were not allowed to compete in the International Stoke Mandeville competition or he surely would have achieved so much more on the international level. Tom did participate in Pan American Wheelchair competitions, winning a total of nineteen medals (five gold, fourteen silver).