Originally published April 4, 2016
Dean of the College of Health Sciences Kathleen Curtis, Ph.D., will be inducted into the 2016 National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 9, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Curtis has been dedicated to the NWBA and the sport of wheelchair basketball for more than 30 years. She began her wheelchair basketball career in 1973 when she was a physical therapist at Tufts New England Medical Center and Rehabilitation Institute.
Curtis is one of the NWBA’s first International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) licensed functional classifiers. She served on the IWBF Executive Council for 10 years and has published dozens of articles on wheelchair basketball for training, injury prevention and athletic skill development.
Curtis joined UTEP in 2007 after serving as director of the Central California Center for Health and Human Services and interim associate dean of the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Fresno.
The National Wheelchair Basketball Association is composed of 181 wheelchair basketball teams within 22 conferences. Founded in 1949 by Timothy Nugent, the NWBA today consists of men’s, women’s, intercollegiate and youth teams throughout the United States and Canada.