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Once a week, Lesly St. Louis travels from his Bayside home to Nassau Community College in Garden City. A modern-day Clark Kent, he dons a red and white jersey and transforms from a CW Post senior to a star basketball point guard.

Like many young athletes, St. Louis, 22, has a rival team – the Connecticut Spokebenders, a long-term goal – to attend law school – and two wheelchairs – one for everyday use and a lightweight sports wheelchair that features a fifth wheel to prevent the chair from flipping backwards during play.

“When I graduated from high school, I wanted to go away for university, but I got sick,” St. Louis said. “I stayed home and started to play for the Nassau Kings instead. It’s an absolutely great exercise to stay fit and it also opens people’s eyes to a lot of disabilities.”

The Nassau Kings is just one New York wheelchair basketball team that is changing the face of sports. Together with the New York Rollin’ Knicks, which is sponsored by the New York Knicks, these two teams are helping to increase awareness of physically-challenged athletes by showcasing their abilities and even opening up career and scholarship opportunities for talented players.

Wheelchair basketball was conceived in Veterans Administration hospitals after World War II. There are currently wheelchair basketball teams around the world that compete in several events, including the Paralympic Games. This past weekend in New York, the Mayor’s Cup Wheelchair Basketball Tournament, the largest wheelchair basketball event of its kind, was held in the Bronx to kick off the 2008-2009 wheelchair basketball season.

The Nassau Kings was one of 13 teams that competed in this event. The team was organized in 1986 but was recently reinvented thanks to one of its coaches, Michael Zangari, a former player and commissioner for the Eastern Wheelchair Basketball Conference. The team of 15 players range in age from 16 to 53. They play hard, despite living with various disabilities such as spinal cord injuries, Spina Bifida, and amputations.

“There’s potential in wheelchair basketball to benefit from the fight,” Zangari said, citing one example of a former player who earned a full scholarship to the University of Illinois and traveled to Beijing this year to play at the Paralympics. “I’m trying to educate the team to be successful on the court and in life.”

Though they play in a different division from the Kings and did not compete against them, the New York Rollin’ Knicks also participated in the Mayor’s Cup, their tenth year in the competition. Most of the team’s 12 members hold full-time jobs or attend college and are expected to commit to one practice a week, weekend tournaments, and occasional games on the road, according to coach Dave Snowden. They currently practice in the Bronx but are set to make a big move to Queens this year – to the new Fowler Avenue Recreation Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The rules in wheelchair basketball are modified to fit players’ needs. For example, the ball must be dribbled once for every two-wheel pushes and if a player falls out of his chair, the coach stops the game. Both teams are always open to recruiting new players, but their requirements are strict.

“We’re trying to show individuals and society that, given an opportunity, these folks can work in the same realm as able-bodied folks,” Snowden said. “No matter what mood you’re in, you’re still a representative of the Knicks so no smoking and no drinking. You have to be a model citizen.”