William Fairbanks
Achievements
Adaptive Sports Hall of FameBill Fairbanks graduated from Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, California, and attended UCLA for undergraduate studies. He played for both the California Western Wheels basketball team and the Garden Grove Bears of the Pacific Coast Conference. He competed in ten National Wheelchair Basketball Tournaments and was selected to the NWBT All-Tournament Team a total of eight times. He was a member of the USA Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Team that garnered a gold medal at the 1964 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
In addition, Bill was an outstanding and dedicated wheelchair tennis player and advocate. The sport of wheelchair tennis was introduced in 1976 in Southern California via a series of exhibitions and clinics, and the sport’s popularity and growth led to the formation of the National Federation of Wheelchair Tennis (NFWT).
Throughout the 1980s, the NFWT developed a strong relationship with the national governing body of tennis, the United States Tennis Association (USTA), due to the ongoing and persistent efforts of Bill and Brad Parks of the NFWT, and Dan Dwyer and Susan Edelstein of the USTA. As a result, a Wheelchair Tennis Committee within the USTA was formed and formally approved in March 1996 by USTA President Lester Snyder. Their efforts provided the foundation for competitive wheelchair tennis as it exists today.
On top of everything else, Bill served as the longtime Vice President of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. He was awarded the Helms Athletic Foundation Award as the “Outstanding Wheelchair Athlete in the USA” a total of two times.