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The NWBA Launches Frank T. Burns Heritage Fund

By NWBA Team, 01/17/20, 5:15PM CST

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A fund to capture, preserve, and display wheelchair basketball and NWBA history.

In honor of Frank Burn’s contribution to wheelchair basketball, the National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) is proud to announce the Frank T. Burns Heritage Fund.

This restricted Fund will be dedicated to projects that help do the following:

  • Capture wheelchair basketball and NWBA history
  • Preserve wheelchair basketball and NWBA history
  • Display wheelchair basketball and NWBA history 

Burns was a lifetime contributor to the NWBA and the sport of wheelchair basketball. He embodied the best of the NWBA organization through his persistent selflessness towards the pursuit of our mission: creating access to sport for people with disabilities. Invariably, he was willing to do whatever his athletes, his team or the NWBA needed from him in his 50 years of involvement in the sport. From starting programs, mentoring coaches, structuring clinics, and leading on the sideline, Burns was a standard bearer for those who would follow.

Frank has a resume of coaching on the local, national and international level that would rival household names in the able-bodied version of the game. A great mentor to his athletes, he was invested in convincing them that they had overflowing worth and potential. This produced a litany of championships including medals at World Championships and the Paralympic Games. However, he was most proud of what it produced off the court: attorneys, corporate executives, teachers and so much more. After his coaching days, Burns became the Chairman of the NWBA Hall of Fame Committee.

Burns advocated to make wheelchair basketball history and stories accessible to those who know very little or nothing at all about the game. He was passionate about making wheelchair basketball mainstream. What does that ultimately look like? Burns wouldn’t settle for a website or a newsletter. His answer would be we need to have a roving museum at All Star Weekend, the Final Four and the Naismith Hall of Fame. The Frank T. Burns Heritage Fund will help the NWBA explore options big and small.

If …

- Someone you love has benefited from adaptive sports or the game of wheelchair basketball

- You're passionate about helping build awareness so future athletes with disabilities can find this life-changing sport

- You've had a mentor like Frank Burns believe in you to help you find potential

- You believe people can benefit from learning the history of the NWBA and how it has impacted the lives of so many

… we hope you will consider giving to the Frank T. Burns Heritage Fund.  

As a non-profit, all contributions to the NWBA are tax-deductible. If Burns has impacted you directly, or if his sacrifice in shaping the game in to where it is today inspires you, we hope you will consider helping us launch this fund. Any level of contribution will make a difference, but so will sharing this link so that your friends and family can learn about someone who is very important to us and they might consider giving as well.