Retired Air Force Veteran Rick Mahaney zeroes in on a game of table tennis inside the New Orleans Convention Center. He holds the white ball in his left hand and makes a serve.
The shot makes it over the net, but he misses the return.
“That's enough of that,” Mahaney said, shaking his head.
Mahaney was one of 629 men and women who competed in the annual Veterans Wheelchair Games, a multi-day competition that brought together hundreds of veterans with disabilities from across the country.
The 2024 games, which wrapped up on Wednesday at New Orleans’ Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, saw its largest turnout of women and novice athletes in its 43-year history, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the event’s organizers.
Sports ranged from table tennis to cycling to basketball. Football made its debut this year.
The roster of athletes included dozens of Louisianans. Mahaney, a Shreveport resident, made the drive to New Orleans for his fourth games since becoming paralyzed after a spinal surgery accident in 2007.
“I was supposed to walk into surgery and walk back out, but that didn’t happen,” he said.
Losing his ability to walk sent him to a dark place, he said. He didn’t do much for a few years. Then, one day he saw an ad for the Veterans Wheelchair Games in a magazine.
He went and surprised himself by earning silver in bowling. He came back the next year and earned a Gold Medal in table tennis. The competition was a big confidence boost. But he also connected with dozens of veterans like him who were adjusting to life in a wheelchair.
“Being with people that know your struggles is good to be around,” he said.
Mahaney’s is a common experience for vets who take part in the games, said Phillip Butterfield with the VA.
“They can come out here, not worried about anything, just focus on the games, focus on getting back together with your brothers and sisters,” he said.
Butterfield said it’s one of the VA’s most effective events to help support veterans’ mental health.
“I really inspires that competitive nature that most veterans have that they think because they're in a wheelchair, that that's lost,” he said.
That struggle is something attendees often bond over. At the edge of a Bocce Ball court, New Orleans resident Shanti Travis watched her brother, a former Marine, compete.
“This is our first time here and I don't think we're ever going to leave,” she said.
A year ago, her brother Ricky became a quadriplegic after a diving accident. She said they weren’t sure what his life would look like after, but teammates in the Wheelchair Games have given their family tips for adjusting to their new life.
“If you can't hold a water bottle, this is how we do it, or even just letting him know ‘There's nothing that you can't ask us that we've been there.’”
The community is expected to grow alongside the VA’s health care system, which has seen registration jump by 30 percent in the past two years. Expanded benefits signed in by the Biden Administration have drawn a lot of new vets.
Back at table tennis, Rick Mahaney fist bumps his competitor, Joe Sinclair, another retired Air Force vet, even though he lost the match. Mahaney has come to know Sinclair through several years of attending the Wheelchair Games.
“I taught him too much,” Mahaney joked. “I played him in Louisville and I beat him and then he comes back here and kills me.”
“I got lucky,” Sinclair chimed in.
Who wins isn’t as important to the vets. It’s the support as they cheer at awards ceremonies for each sport. Over the games’ five days, nearly 100 medals were handed out. A Louisiana player won a bronze in partner pickleball.
Next year’s games will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Registration is free for veterans. The VA also pays for airfare and lodging for most attendees.
“If you're a veteran, just get out there,” Butterfield said. “Being in a wheelchair doesn't mean your life stops. It just looks different.”
