The man who invented a sport and played tennis with Willy Wonka
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- Brad Parks, paralyzed at 18 in a 1976 freestyle skiing accident, hit tennis balls at a family picnic in Indiana and decided to build a wheelchair version of the sport rather than take up wheelchair basketball.
- Parks partnered with physiotherapist Jeff Minnebraker to formalize the rules — settling on letting the ball bounce twice, the only rule difference from tennis that still applies — and won the inaugural event in Irvine, California, in 1977.
- Parks became good friends with Willy Wonka actor Gene Wilder after Wilder reluctantly agreed to play doubles at a New York private club, and later drew exhibition support from Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Yannick Noah, and Martina Navratilova.
- Parks founded the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation in 1988 and served as its first president; wheelchair tennis joined the Paralympics in 1992, where he and Randy Snow won the inaugural doubles gold.
- The IWTF became the first disability sport fully integrated into the International Tennis Federation in 1998, a move Parks credits with letting wheelchair tennis grow within a mainstream governing body.
- Parks was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2010 as the first wheelchair athlete honored, and the Brad Parks Award is now given annually for outstanding contributions to the game.
- Britain's Alfie Hewett (34 Grand Slam titles) and Gordon Reid (30 Grand Slam titles) both credited Parks with giving them purpose and a career, calling wheelchair tennis a 'huge worldwide sport' born from a 'little idea' 50 years ago.
Why it matters: Wheelchair tennis now sits across all four Grand Slams and the Paralympics, and 34-time Grand Slam champion Alfie Hewett plus 30-time champion Gordon Reid directly attribute their careers to Parks' 1976 decision — proof that one disabled athlete's refusal to accept 'tennis isn't feasible in a wheelchair' reshaped both disability and mainstream tennis.
