Wheelchair Bears rolling into championship game

Maybe there's an answer to solving the Bears' midseason slump.

Add some wheels.

Wheelchair football might be described as “faster than cleats” or “the most violent game on asphalt.” However it's viewed, Chicago is good at it. The GLASA Bears wheelchair football team is headed to the championship game against the Chiefs on Nov. 23 at the Kansas City Convention Center.

“It's constant contact,” described tight end/safety Dave Michael, a Carmel High School grad and left-leg amputee. “Every play you're banging, crunching. I've broken a couple wheels. The paint on the chairs are all scratched or scuffed off, down to the metal. People hitting, you're flying, laying on the ground.”

The team is coached by Jason Sfire, a former three-sport athlete at Lake Zurich who transitioned to adaptive sports after a devastating accident and dozens of surgeries.

“Here's what's crazy — our guys, in chairs, are actually faster than some of the NFL athletes,” Sfire said. “I have guys that can do 40 yards in a wheelchair in 3.8 seconds, just because you're rolling. At 20-plus miles per hour, crashing into each other, it's a violent game.”

This team is sponsored in part by the Bears, and even has an on-field connection. Sfire coached Bears linebacker Jack Sanborn in youth football with the Lake Zurich Flames. The two reunited during training camp this summer.

“Obviously, he's physically different,” Sanborn said of catching up with Sfire. “Spiritually and everything else, seems like the same great guy I remember. So it was awesome to see him when I had the chance and seeing a smile on his face.”

Always competing

This is a story of team success, but every player and coach within the Bears wheelchair football squad has an inspiring story of overcoming hardship.

Michael lost his leg when he was in middle school, so he didn't play football at Carmel. But he did wrestle at the varsity level against opponents with two legs. Maybe there was a slight advantage in weight, but he lost plenty of leverage due to the missing limb.

“I was OK,” Michael said. “Co-captain my senior year, losing record. I wrestled on one knee, making my opponents have to lower their levels and making me really good at hand and ankle takedowns.”

After school, Michael got involved with GLASA, the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association. He started out playing sled hockey and eventually became sort of a personal trainer, developing specific workouts to help athletes prepare for adaptive sports. When he heard GLASA was starting a football team four years ago, he jumped at the chance to join.

Sfire did football, wrestling and tennis in high school, then spent a year playing football at Harper College before launching a career in construction and development. A few years later, he was involved in a construction accident, falling 35 feet onto a concrete floor and was lucky to even survive.

“I shattered my spine in nine places, shattered both pelvises, broke both wrists, broke my collarbone, right shoulder came out of my skin, knocked out 10 of my teeth,” he said. “Obviously was pretty messed up. Had 54 surgeries in my life.”

Sfire actually recovered from the initial accident, for the most part, but developed an infection during a spinal surgery a few years later that left him partially paralyzed. He's not confined to a wheelchair, he can walk several feet on his own with forearm crutches, but is a wheelchair user. He's remained active in adaptive sports, playing golf, tennis and pickleball.

Going to KC

In a perfect world, the championship game would be played at Arrowhead Stadium, but wheelchairs and grass aren't a great match. The Bears hosted, and won, a tournament earlier this season, which was played in a Rosemont parking lot.

With a spot in the championship game on the line at the most recent tournament in Las Vegas, the Bears beat the defending champion Dallas Cowboys for the first time, and the Los Angeles Rams to secure the berth.

The game works like 7-on-7, since most plays are passes. Sfire said most travel expenses are covered by the Bob Woodruff Foundation, while the Bears also have been generous with support.

“To be a top-two team in the league is really an honor,” Michael said. “This is going to be fun.”