Off the Line
Jazmin Almlie-Ryan: From Shooting Hoops to Shooting Rifl e
Jazmin Almlie-Ryan nev- er had plans to be a compet- itive shooter. Instead it was her fi rst athletic love, basket- ball, which literally brought her to the range. Almlie-Ryan (Houston,
Texas), who will compete in the R4 and Rifl e events at the IPC World Champion- ships, found shooting when she was playing in a wheel-
never looked back.” Almlie-Ryan says she was
never an athlete before she was in her wheelchair and is more physically fi t now than she ever was. Her disability is progressive and affects her spine. “I was struggling with
what I wanted to do when I became disabled,” she said. “Ironically, I became a pa-
all I knew. That’s when I decided to go try sports... When you look at wheelchair sports, almost everybody automatically thinks of bas- ketball. I just fi gured that was the easiest one for me to go try fi rst.” She found an area group
that played at night and joined. She was the only woman competing. “I found
the next.
“In basketball, you have the adrenalin surge. It sur- prises a lot of my basketball people that I’m in shooting because when I’d play, I’m loud and screaming at ev- erybody and hyper whereas in shooting, it’s not the same at all,” she said. “A lot of the same principles like focus, maintaining intensity are all there but with shooting, you have to dial it back. The two
Jazmine Almlie-Ryan was the lone female member of the Houston Hot Wheels.
sports together help play off each other: If you can go from super intense to super relaxed, that will help you in your basketball game as well. I became a better bas- ketball player when I started shooting because it made me problem solve more, be more technical, all that kind of stuff.”
chair basketball tournament and one of her games was cancelled. A Paralympic Air Rifl e match was being con- ducted next door and she heard the winner got to at- tend a training camp. “I’m from Texas so I know how to shoot,” she joked. “I went over, hurried up and entered and I won. That brought me to the Olympic Training Cen- ter for my fi rst camp and I
tient at the facility I work at, on the same fl oor I worked on.” “Where
everyone else
who goes into rehab wants to do everything they can to get out, I wanted to stay in,” she said. “I was completely the opposite, I had trouble leaving. It was my career, my comfort zone; it was where I spent all my time. It’s where all my friends were, it was
54 USA Shooting News | July 2014
a sports chair I could borrow and fell in love with it.” Twice a week for three-
hours-a-day, Almlie-Ryan played for the Houston Hot Wheels, a men’s wheelchair basketball team, as well as the Lady Mavericks. Almlie- Ryan went on to compete in two National Wheelchair Basketball Association Championships, winning bronze one year and silver
And though she’ll occa- sionally play a pickup game, she’s glad her fi rst sport brought her to her current venture. “I learned not to be afraid
to try something new be- cause you don’t know where it will take you,” she said. “I dreamed of playing Para- lympic-level basketball and never thought about shoot- ing and totally just fell into it. I found out I like this more than basketball!”
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