“This is not wheelchair golf,” said Jonathan Sigworth ’10. “This is very aggressive. This transcends the whole victim mentality.”

Since his freshman year at the University, Sigworth has played on the Connecticut Wheelchair Rugby Team. But Sigworth’s passion for the sport isn’t limited to his participation on the court—he has devoted the better part of his last two winter breaks and his summer break to introducing the sport to India.

After graduating from Hamden High School in 2005, Sigworth decided to defer admission to the University for a year to pursue a program called Intensive Study of Integrated Global History & Theology, or INSIGHT.

Sigworth spent the fall of 2005 in California studying the history of world religions, and then traveled to India for the spring semester of the program. One day while late to class, Sigworth decided to ride his bike along a mountain path. Due to a flat back tire, Sigworth fell 70 feet, landing on his head behind a shed near a Missions hospital.

Sigworth was taken to the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (ISIC) in New Delhi, which is the only hospital specialized for spinal cord injuries in India. As he lay in a hospital bed at the ISIC recovering from the fall that rendered him quadriplegic, his thoughts were focused not on how he might be taken care of, but instead on how he might serve.

“When I was able-bodied I never considered the disabled community once,” he said. “But, now that I was a member, I considered myself almost privileged.”

Sigworth observed that most of the patients at the ISIC had sustained injuries simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, whether that meant being caught in the crossfire during a violent political conflict or suffering a traffic accident. This inspired Sigworth to reflect on what had brought him there.

“Most of the people in the hospital were not injured because of what they did,” he said. “I was in the hospital because I did something stupid. This was another reason why I felt I had to serve people, instead of being absorbed with myself.”

After five weeks at the ISIC, Sigworth returned to the United States. He spent five more weeks in rehabilitation in Wallingford, Conn., where he experienced some major culture shock

“The hospital in India was more of a community than a hospital—there’s less red tape and you can ask about other patients,” he said. “In the U.S., everything is geared toward keeping the patient safe—so less opportunities for community building exist for patients. In India, the focus is more on community building. In the U.S., it’s more on personal privacy and sanitation.”

Ultimately, it was Sigworth’s interest in community building that led him to become involved with wheelchair rugby. At the hospital, Sigworth met a peer mentor, an outpatient who had recovered sufficiently enough to be able to spend several days a week out of the hospital.

“He introduced me to wheelchair rugby,” Sigworth explained. “He showed me all these things I didn’t know how to do as a quadriplegic, including swimming and wheelchair rugby. I started swimming and going to wheelchair practice. Swimming is great, but with rugby you’re part of a team. You’re with a community of quadriplegics who have the same injuries as you, but they’re 45, as opposed to 23.”

Sigworth continued to play rugby during his freshman year at the University, traveling to Farmington, Conn. for practice. But India remained on his mind, and when he returned to the hospital in New Delhi that winter break to continue his treatment, he was eager to see how he could help. He discovered that there were no other quadriplegics there who had recovered to the extent that he had.

“The doctors in India didn’t understand what a quadriplegic could do,” he said. “They’d never seen a person like me. It wasn’t a winter break; it was a work camp. There was a tremendous need for peer mentors. I was one of the only ones available. Unfortunately, I was living I don’t know how many miles away.”

After providing much-needed services to the hospital community, it was difficult for Sigworth to return to student life.

“I was back at school, worrying about my studies, but after I left India there was no one else to serve as a mentor to these patients,” he said. “So I didn’t know what to do. It was hard to be in India and at school in the states at the same time.”

Wanting to affect the world while still in school, Sigworth began to contemplate the possibility of starting a wheelchair rugby team in India, despite certain challenges.

“The problem is, wheelchair rugby is an expensive sport,” he said. “It seems rather vain and pretentious in an environment in which there are so many social and infrastructural ills. Wheelchair sports have had little success in developing nations where the economic, political, and social infrastructure does not and cannot support the concerns of the disabled community.”

From summer to winter break of the past year, Sigworth planned a rugby workshop in India, securing donations and donated equipment from America. Sigworth titled his project “The Murderball Implementation Project” after “Murderball,” the 2006 documentary about wheelchair rugby. The project received an $8,000 grant from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

Sigworth left for India the day after Christmas and returned shortly before the start of this semester. His group first taught therapists and paraplegics, and then moved on to help start a team of interested quadriplegics.

Sigworth is planning on taking off the fall semester to help train the team, which calls itself the New Delhi Bullz Eyes. He also plans to pursue an independent study in the sociology department by filming a documentary that will explore the effectiveness of wheelchair rugby as a sustainable resource of empowerment for quadriplegics and other members of the disabled community.

“I want to continue to make myself relevant to the disabled community in whatever capacity I can be,” he said.