"Don't be your own biggest barrier in life," Sikora said away from the court. "It's the person that you are. It's not being in a wheelchair. Don't shut the door on yourself."

Sikora became a paraplegic on May 15, 1971, suffering a spinal cord injury when a drunken driver struck his car. Sikora was 17 and two weeks away from graduating from Elizabeth Forward High School. He said the date of the accident is as personal as his birthdate or wedding anniversary.

In the first year or so after his accident, he said he gladly would have welcomed the chance to walk again. Now, more than three decades later, he said he wouldn't change a thing.

"I've had a very blessed life," said the 50-something Sikora, who declined to give his exact age. "I had the choice to be depressed and give up on life, or I could take advantage of the gifts God let me have. You need to look at your blessings. Sometimes they're hidden behind things people don't see at first."

Today, the Freeport resident is an assistant coach for the Team USA women's wheelchair basketball team and executive director of Harmar-based HOPE Network, a charity he founded in 1997 to keep physically handicapped people active through sports and recreation. He also coaches the Steel City Starz, one of 12 all-female squads in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association.

The track and field athlete and basketball guard in high school went on to earn a psychology degree from the University of Pittsburgh, where he met his future wife, Susan Garrett-Sikora. He started working as a social worker at the Harmarville facility before spending more than 20 years as director of the center's spinal cord injury program.

Ever the athlete, he helped found the Pittsburgh Steelwheelers, an all-male wheelchair basketball team, in 1977. By the 1990s, he was a guard on the men's national wheelchair basketball team that won silver at the World Games in England. He missed a chance to play in the Paralympics because one of his heart medications was on the list of banned substances.

He'll get another chance this fall, when he helps coach the women's team in China. He said this might be his last go-round with the team after spending two decades traveling the globe for tournaments from Brazil to Japan.

"It's a dream come true to get to the Paralympics, as a coach or a player," Sikora said.

But Sikora's mission will not end after his days with Team USA.

He'll still help others with disabilities through HOPE Network and he'll still coach the Starz. Jokingly complaining that he's getting too old, Sikora cannot help but find himself in the middle of a pickup game in the gym just down the hall from his office.

"Next basket," he said after more than an hour of playing. "Pitt's on in five minutes."