DURHAM — The car crash cost Graeme Crowther the use of his legs, but it couldn't crush his competitive spirit.

Less than a year after the Barrington man was paralyzed from the mid-chest down in a one-vehicle rollover on his way to work, he was playing wheelchair rugby — or quad rugby as it's known in the United States — for a team called the Wildcats.

"I played soccer for 27 years prior to my injury," said Crowther, a native of Scotland who played soccer at Laconia High School. "I needed something to stay active. Being a competitive person, I was looking for something to keep me competitive and a contact sport, and this provides all of that."

Five weeks after he got married, Crowther was hurt in August of 2008 when his head hit the car's ceiling and he fractured the C7 vertebra, making him a quadriplegic.

"My wife has been an angel throughout the whole process," he said. "I'm not where I am without her right now. It's completely life changing, but you can't sit back and let it rule your life. You still have to live your life and get out there. Quad rugby is one of the ways available for me to get back in the community and maintain my competitive edge.

"Being out here gives me the positive motivation to continue going forward," Crowther added.

Despite the severity of the injury, he has made remarkable progress — mentally and physically — with the aid of the University of New Hampshire's Northeast Passage, a program that provides health promotion and adapted sports programs to disabled persons throughout New England.

"I needed something to replace that competitive edge," said Crowther, who started playing quad rugby in February. "I'm not the type of person to sit back after the injury. I wanted to find everything I could. Northeast Passage is a great outlet, not only for rugby but for other wheelchair sports. It's given us the foundation to get together and bang around a little bit."

Barrington's Graeme Crowther, of the Wildcats, carries the ball during last weekend's quad rugby tournament at UNH. Crowther played soccer at Laconia High School. (Monika O'Clair/Democrat photo)

"These guys get in accidents, they break their neck, they get hurt and they still have that competitive drive," said Wildcats coach Chandler Bullard. "This is an outlet for that."

Quad rugby is a contact sport where collisions occur with such force they can send players tumbling out of their wheelchairs and onto the floor. The chairs are custom-made and designed specifically for the sport, which is played on a basketball court with two teams of four players each on the floor at one time.

"We practice every Saturday morning," Crowther said. "It's a great way to stay in shape. You meet people who are in similar situations as you which isn't the easiest thing to do when you come out of the hospital. It's been good for me. It's kept my spirit of life going and kept me positive. I'm doing everything I can to get better and get as strong as possible."

The Wildcats hosted a tournament last weekend at UNH's Hamel Recreation Center that included teams from two countries and five states.

"Everybody's out here to have fun," Crowther said, "but we take it very seriously. It is a tournament. We've got two countries and five states represented here. So we all travel and this is what we like to do. We were in New Jersey back in October and we'll be going up to Canada in December."

In addition to the mental and physical benefits of the sport, there is also the camaraderie factor.

"Where my injury was last August, I've talked to guys who've been injured up to 16 years," said Crowther, who graduated from UNH in 2002 with a degree in kinesiology. "It's been a burden off me to kind of see that everyone's been going through what I'm going through. There's an outsource of people I can contact where you can say, 'This has come up. What would you do in this situation?' You don't have that in normal life right now."

In quad rugby, each player is classified based on their level of ability and assigned a point value between 0.5 (lowest function level) and 3.5 (highest). The total value of all the players on the court from one team at one time cannot exceed eight.

Crowther is classified as a 2.5.

"It's very physical, especially in the upper body and the arms," he said. "It takes a lot of balance."

While Crowther's injury was an abrupt life-altering event, Mike Wright has spent most of his life in a wheelchair. The UNH junior, who grew up a mile from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., was injured in an auto accident when he was 1.

"I know how to push a chair and I know how to move it," Wright said. "I've always been a fan of football. I have season tickets to the Patriots. I love watching games. I found a sport where I'm allowed to hit people. It made me happy."

This is Wright's third year playing quad rugby. Several years ago, a team from Portland, Maine, and a team from Boston were absorbed by NEP and renamed the Wildcats.

"I'm in the gym two times a week lifting," Wright said, "and at least two days a week I'm on the track pushing. And we practice every Saturday. It's a full-time commitment."

Wright is classified as a 2.0. He can play offense and defense, and is one of the team's primary in-bounders after the ball goes out of bounds. Because of his slight build, Wright has to use finesse over force.

"My size doesn't help my situation," he said. "All these guys are so much bigger than me. I have to try and weave in and out of them, and when I get hit by them I feel it. Then you've got to compose yourself back together and keep on going."