Woody Harrelson’s ‘Champions’: What Makes A Disabled Person A Champion?

I recently got the chance to watch ‘Champions’, a movie starring Woody Harrleson, Kaitlin Olson, and Ernie Hudson. It follows Marcus Marakovich, a minor league basketball assistant coach, and a very hot tempered one at that. A particular incident that ignited that hot temper gets him fired from his job, which leads him to drive drunk, which leads him to getting arrested for DUI. During trial, the judge gives Marcus two options – spend 18 months in jail or spend 90 days doing community service working as a coach for a basketball team of intellectually disabled people and get them to win the Paralympic game in Vancouver, Canada. Initially, I assumed that this was the reason why the movie was titled ‘Champions’.

To my utter surprise, Marcus chose to do community service and coach a team of intellectually disabled individuals. And the reason why I say ‘to my utter surprise’ is because of the type of person Marcus was characterized as in the movie. We get to know Marcus as a grumpy, angry, old school type of man. If I were to compare him to anyone that I ever knew in my own life, it’d be my father-in-law. But, he ends up becoming a much better person than my father-in-law, because after warming up to the idea of coaching a bunch of disabled people to what seemed to be just a mere dream, he actually makes an effort to get to know each and every one of them. That’s way more than I can say about my father-in-law. After almost 13 years, he still never got to know me beyond my disabilities. He refuses to; he only knows the idea of me based on what he sees on social media and this blog, and nothing beyond that. This trait is the main reason why I won’t allow my father-in-law to have a relationship with my son. For all I care, he can continue getting his information about him solely through this blog and my Instagram, and I’ll continue raising my son to be a better man than he ever was.

Marcus opens up to the team he coaches, and we even see him defending them when they get called ‘retarded’ by an amateur, ignorant man who refused to give the team the right to use a public court. We also see Marcus warm up to the idea of love after years of having one night stands and meaningless sex. The movie opens with Marcus in bed with a woman he had meaningless sex with the previous night. To his surprise, she’s fine with it. She turned out to be the sister of one the disabled men that Marcus coaches. They continue having a casual relationship, but to their disappointment, it turned into something more over time.

We also get to see a sub-plot in the story in the eyes of Marcus. Alex, the woman Marcus is f*cking, is a loving sister to Johnny. Johnny has Down Syndrome, and Alex is the type of person who will drop everything to help her brother. She’s the caretaker and the mother figure. When Johnny has the slightest implication that he wants to lead an independent life, Alex freaks out and makes her feelings known. With that, she ends her fling with Marcus because he’s the one that encouraged Johnny to follow through with what he wanted to do. On a surface, Alex seems to be selfish and ignorant. But if we look closely at the situation, we see that it’s not that Alex is selfish, but rather that she’s afraid to not be needed anymore because being there for Johnny was all she really knew since he was born.

When I first saw the trailer for the movie, I thought it was called ‘Champions’ because the team winning the Paralympics was the goal, and that’d be how the movie ended. Winning WAS the goal for the team. Correction- the initial goal was to even be able to be part of that final game and to even be able to travel, and THEN the goal was to win. Spoiler**** – the team didn’t win the game. But they won in other ways.They won in life. Each member of the team was a champion in their own right in life, and that was the beauty of it all. Johnny, for one, stood up to his sister. That made him a champion. He also got over his fear of water after almost drowning. That made him a champion. Another member stood up to his boss after being disrespected by him enough times. That made him a champion. Another team member warmed up to Marcus after refusing to be coached by him because of his DUI, as he became disabled following being hit by a drunk driver. That made him a champion. And finally, another team member made sure the team always worked together as a united front when Marcus couldn’t connect with them. That made her a champion.

That was the premise of the entire movie. These disabled team members being champions in their own right was the premise of the entire movie; not them winning any games. Winning was the initial goal, especially for Marcus who’s all about winning, but the team unintentionally made him realize that it was more than just about winning a game. The fact that they got to the game in the first place was a very big deal in itself. For a disabled person, winning a game isn’t a happy ending. A disabled person happy ending is that they, or shall I saw we, live as normal lives as we possibly can. That’s called success and it’s something to be proud of. For a disabled person, no matter what type of disability they have, it’s 10 times harder than it is for an able-bodied person to live their ow version of normal, especially surrounded by a society that is so judgmental and ableist.

When we got to the scene where a fellow coach of a different basketball team wouldn’t hand over a public outside court to The Friends, the team Marcus coached, for the reason that they were all a bunch of retards, my husband commented that them being disabled didn’t make them stupid, I responded by saying that there were many people out there who have the same outlook on disabled people as his father. And that’s just the reality of it all. My father-in-law isn’t the first an certainly isn’t the last person who’d been such an ignorant, disrespectful prick. I’d encountered people like my father-in-law my entire life, from classmates to school administrators to coworkers to recruiters who interviewed me to friends of friends to people on the streets.

In middle school, one of my classmates told other classmates that I deserved to be in a wheelchair. When I was in high school, administrators and guidance counsellors told my parents I’d never get be able to finish college, or even get accepted into any college. In college, my disability counsellor told me to my face I could forget about obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree as my marks would never be high enough. Also in college, a group pf my classmates just stared at me with eyes of disgust when they saw me struggle to move a chair for me to sit on beside my friend while she was away, and some random guy ended up being kind enough to help me. During my job searching days, there were so many recruiters who obviously made assumptions about me and my abilities solely based on the fact that they saw I had a disability. One recruiter told me I wasn’t able to type fast because I only have the use of one hand. Another recruiter couldn’t wait to end the interview with me after he saw I has a disability, and ended the interview after 7 minutes. A good job interview is always 20 minutes or longer in length. Another recruiter bluntly asked me what disability I had even though it was illegal of her to ask anything about that without me stating this first. When I finally had a recruiter look past my disability and hire me for my skills, qualifications and abilities and offered me a job on the spot, I encountered a specific coworker who was obviously an ableist. My ableist coworker never even looked at me the entire time we worked together. The one time attempted to say hello to her, she’d just roll her eyes at me and walk right past me.

And then, there was my father-in-law….

My father-in-law is actually an interesting human being. When you see him, he has a poker face. You think everything’s going well, but he’s actually analyzing you and tries to figure out what’s wrong with you. Every single person he ever lays his eyes on has a ‘job interview’ with him. When I first met him, all he did was ask me questions that a recruiter would ask, except those questions had to do with my personal life and home life and school life and work life. I’m surprised he didn’t ask me if I could have sex, though I almost wish he did just to make things awkward for him. So if he’s reading this, the answer to that is yes. I CAN have sex.

I knew exactly what was happening the moment I sat with him at his dining table. He might’ve had a poker face, but I’m educated in Human Resources. Human Resources is all about reading and analyzing people, so I saw right through his manipulative ways. The following day, I didn’t hear from my now-husband at all. Not a single word until very late at night. His father let all his feeling known about his son being in a relationship with a disabled girl. He said the following this about me based on the fact that I’m disabled and have cerebral palsy:

1. I won’t be educated as I won’t ever be able to graduate college successfully
2. I won’t be able to find employment
3. I won’t be able to be a good housewife
4. I won’t be able to clean
5. I won’t be able to cook
6. I won’t be able to bear children
7. I won’t be able to hold a child
8. I won’t be able to take care of children
9. I won’t be able to have deep conversations
10. I won’t be able to take long walks
11. I won’t be able to travel
12. I won’t be able to live independantly, and because of that, he won’t be able to either if he stays with me
13. I’m mentally restarted
14. I’ll be in a wheelchair by the age of 40
15. He’ll be my caretaker rather than my partner
16. I’ll be an embarrassment to his family

All that was 12 years ago, and I just can’t help but laugh at the entire fiasco. In the 13 years that I’ve been with my husband, I’d accomplished more than what my father-in-law said I wouldn’t be able to do. I graduated college and obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources, as well as a Project Management certificate program. In the 13 years my husband and have been together, I’ve travelled more than most people do in their lifetime. I’ve been able to run my own business for years and my clients want to work with me BECAUSE of my disability and my story. My husband and I have lived together independently in our own place (we lived with my parents before that). I take care of my household just fine. I clean, I cook, and I make our place feel like a home. I was able to get pregnant and get through 9 months of pregnancy. There were hiccups, but what pregnancy doesn’t have complications? My son is 15 months old now, and I’ve been very successful at taking care of him without my husband, or anyone else for that matter, being there to help me 24/7. In addition to that, I take long walks just fine. Just a few days ago, my husband and I took a 3 km walk with our son. And finally, I can assure you that my husband is my partner, not my caretaker. And in life, you never what might hit you. Someone who’s 100% healthy will get sick or have an accident that will leave their partners becoming their caretakers. Who’s to say it couldn’t have happened to my father-in-law? Who’s to say it couldn’t still happen to my father-in-law?

I’d accomplished all the things I’d accomplished not because my father-in-law, or anyone else throughout my lifetime, doubted me. I’d accomplished those things because I knew I could. I wanted to accomplish those things and I did. I wanted to have an education, so I did that. I wanted to work, so I’ve been doing that. I wanted to travel, so I did. I wanted to have a partner, have my own family and live an independent life, so I did. And that’s in spite of me not only having cerebral palsy, but also in spite of me surviving a car accident, obtaining a brain injury and being diagnosed with epilepsy thereafter. That makes me a CHAMPION.