Patty Cisneros was involved in a car accident when she was 18 years old, leaving her with a spinal cord injury that opened up her eyes to a new world of basketball.

“You always go through your difficulties dealing with such a tragic event,” she said Monday at Ubben Basketball Complex. “It goes from one day walking to the next being in a wheelchair. You have your down days, but wheelchair basketball completely changed the way I viewed my disability.”

Before the accident, Cisneros was a good enough “stand-up” basketball player to earn offers from Division I schools. Afterward, she put her natural talents to use while mastering a new apparatus.

She was a gold medal winner at the Paralympic and Parapan Games in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and has been a member of the U.S. Paralympic Wheelchair Basketball team since 1999.

As head coach of the Illinois women’s wheelchair basketball team, Cisneros is spearheading an effort to take tonight’s Ultimate Basketball Challenge to a new level of popularity. In the event’s third year, she knows it can be fun watching able-bodied and wheelchair athletes competing in the all-out frenzy of wheelchair basketball. But she thinks it can be much more than that.

Cisneros said that when the doors to Huff Hall open at 6 p.m. Wednesday and the action gets underway at 7, what unfolds on the court could be powerful, if only for the able-bodied athletes that test their abilities in a wheelchair.

“I think it opens up your eyes on how to view the world,” Cisneros said. “So easily something can be taken from you, so you need to appreciate the things you do have and work at the things that you want as hard as you can. I was 18. I was a freshman in college.”

The event will feature the men’s and women’s teams competing alongside the national champion Illinois wheelchair teams in various competitions. Autograph sessions before and after the event have drawn upwards of 1,000 people the last two years, but a scheduled free throw shooting contest this time around could help draw an even larger crowd.

Football head coach Ron Zook, along with President B. Joseph White and Chancellor Richard Herman, are scheduled to participate in a free-throw shooting contest sometime during the festivities. Weber, when prodded, said he would consider participating too, except for one thing:

“If they ask me to shoot free throws I’ll try, but if it goes like our season did, I’ll probably miss,” Weber said, alluding to his team’s struggles from the line this season. “I’m not sure I’m in the free throw shooting contest.”

Jolette Law, the women’s basketball coach, will get her first taste of the event following her inaugural season at Illinois.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I think my team will see how difficult it is. You have to be appreciative of everything you have. The wheelchair team has mastered it, they can do everything from that wheelchair. I think my kids will have to learn a little bit and adjust, but it’s going to be interesting.”

Cisneros hopes people walk away having learned one thing:

“I think a lot of times it’s viewed as a therapeutic event for the wheelchair athletes but really it’s a driving force in many of their lives,” she said. “Our athletes are competitive, and I think other athletes will see that determination and motivation from the beginning.”