The Lakeshore Foundation. Healthy. Active. Independent.
Jacob Counts
Men’s Wheelchair Basketball
Sport: Men’s Wheelchair Basketball
Hometown: Covington, Kentucky
Current Residence: Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Jacob Counts was selected to his first national team in 2003 and helped the U.S. qualify to compete at the 2004 Paralympic Games. Counts returned to the U.S. squad in 2007 where he made quite an impression on the coaches. He and his teammates won the gold medal at the Parapan American Games this past summer. Counts is also the assistant head coach of the men’s wheelchair basketball team at the University of Alabama.
2008 U.S. Paralympic Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Team
The U.S. has not won a medal in the men’s wheelchair basketball competition at a Paralympic Games since it won bronze in Sydney in 2000. Amidst player boycotts and internal turmoil, the team finished a dismal seventh at the 2004 Games in Athens. Since then, a new coaching staff has been put in place and a number of new players have been brought on board. The team shocked everyone, except themselves, by winning a silver medal at the 2006 Wheelchair Basketball World Championships and improved on that with a gold medal performance at the 2007 Parapan American Games, which included a thrilling last-second victory over archrival Canada, the two-time defending Paralympic champion. With new leadership and a new core of young, talented athletes, the U.S. is a strong medal contender once again.
Courtesy U.S. Paralympics
