Murderball, Quad Rugby Players Appear at Trinity

Murderball won the audience award for best documentary at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and the film deserved it. Directors Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro followed the U.S. Wheelchair Rugby team for two years, from the 2002 Wheelchair Rugby World Championships in Sweden to the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece. The closeness that developed between the directors, the players, and their families is obvious throughout the film. The directors said in one interview that they filmed everything until asked to stop, which results in an intimate, personal portrait of each character.Trinity students got a chance last Monday to see Murderball at Cinestudio and to meet the coach and several players from the Connecticut Jammers, a regional quad rugby team, after the movie. Coach Bud Harvey and players Jim Quick, Andrew Vilardo, and Tom Branchaud spoke about themselves and the game of quad rugby, also known as Murderball. (A game called Murderball is a little difficult to market, Zupan explains at a press conference before the Paralympics in the movie.)

After the movie, "these players spoke about how they got into the sport of quad rugby, how the sport works, and answered questions about the game. Along the way, they cleared up many misconceptions that many people have about quadriplegics. We were thrilled with the turnout and the questions that were asked by the audience. From what I've heard, everyone seemed to gain a new perspective from the film and the speakers," said Haley Kimmet '08.

"The Murderball event was hosted by the Disability Awareness Theme Housing Quad, which westarted as a means tointegrate the Trinity College campus and the community surrounding it in addressing today's disability issues," continues Kimmet. Kimmet and roommates Aliza Trurekherman '08, Stephanie Keith '08, and Lauren Murray '08 "felt like the campus, while full of clubs and events dedicated to diversity and gender issues, was missing out on an entire portion of the population - those individuals with disabilities."

Murderball has a unique take on disability. None of the characters pretend that life as a quadriplegic is easy. Keith Cavill, recently injured in a dirt bike accident, arrives home from rehab, looks around his redesigned room, and proclaims to his well-meaning mother and girlfriend, "I'm in a wheelchair. This sucks."

The quad rugby players don't want sympathy or pity though. Mark Zupan, the U.S. quad rugby team captain, tells a group of prospective players that he has "done more in a wheelchair than able-bodied." The rugby players that Rubin and Shapiro film do not deny that they are disabled, but they do not define themselves by their disabilities, either. Two of Zupan's friends concur (sort of), recalling that Zupan was a jerk before he was a quadriplegic, calling any effort to relate the two conditions "bogus."

Much of the film centers on team members off the court. They are all surprisingly regular guys. Zupan is definitely a bad-ass, with a goatee, multiple tattoos, and a hot girlfriend who used to work at the morgue. In the movie, Zupan and his girlfriend goof around at a pool like any other couple, as the Moldy Peaches' "Anybody Else but You" (one of several soundtrack gems) plays in the background. The guys joke around with each other, teasing one teammate because he "doesn't like big boobs," or fairly unabashedly answering questions about sex and meeting girls.

Many members of the Trinity men's and women's rugby teams came to Monday night's screening and talk and seemed fascinated by the game. Murderball gets its name because the game's goal is "to basically kill the man with the ball," as Zupan explains. Quadriplegics are not paralyzed; they have impairment in all four limbs, most because of spinal cord injuries. Each player is given between .5 and 3 points, depending on ability, and during the game coaches can put out players for a total of 8 points. Most put glue on their gloves to catch the ball. The quad rugby games are as intense as any played by the Trinity teams, with their steel-plated wheelchairs crashing thunderously.

At the games, family members, friends, and significant others pack the stands and look as invested in the game as any player. Scott Hogsett, another team member, meets "the girl of his dreams" at a bar. Bob Lujano, a quadruple amputee, meets his girlfriend, a paraplegic swimmer, at the Athens Paralympics. Lujano is remarkably agile and mobile and has been playing quad rugby for ten years. He is also one of the friendliest team members. A group of cub scouts visits, and one tow-headed kid shyly asks how he eats pizza with his elbows; Lujano demonstrates with a smile. Later, in Athens, the guys recreate a scene from Ocean's Eleven, and Lujano hides in a cardboard box to the delight and guffaws of his teammates.

Former U.S. player and current coach of the Canadian quad rugby team, Joe Soares, is another star of Murderball. Soares, paralyzed by polio as a child, is as gruff as Zupan at the beginning of the film. Joe's son plays viola and gets good grades, and clearly admires his sometimes harsh and always super-competitive dad (even as he complains about dusting dad's enormous trophy wall). By the end of the film, though, Soares has softened up a bit: he visits his own family, shows up at his son's recital, and even includes his son's scholastic trophies on his wall.

"I thought Murderball gave a fairly holistic view of what it's like to live with quadriplegia. It sort of righted a lot of misconceptions about people who are quadriplegic, showed that they still live healthy, full lives despite the struggles that they face," said Marisa Dolan '07, who plays rugby at Trinity.

At the end of the film, members of the U.S. quad rugby team visit a rehab hospital for recently injured Iraq war vets. The scenes of their game with the ridiculously young-looking vets are contrasted with a congratulatory speech from Pres. Bush on their medal in the Paralympics and the hardships they have overcome.

"I saw the film every night, and the goose bumps just kept coming. I can't wait to see it again. The DVD comes out on Nov. 29," says Kimmet. The Jammers will be selling the DVD and putting profits towards team upkeep and equipment.