Coach Jim Hayes '74
UT Arlington and the Movin’ Mav wheelchair basketball family are mourning the loss of Coach Jim Hayes, who passed away from an intestinal blood clot at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth on Saturday, May 24th, at the age of 58.
Coach Hayes graduated from UT Arlington in 1974, where he had been president of Handicapped Student Association and the TCJC South Campus Student Body. He was the Vice President of Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity at UT Arlington. In 1972 Jim also ran for the TCJC Board of Trustees while still a student at UT Arlington.
Excerpt from the Star-Telegram, 5/27/08:
Kent Gardner, a longtime friend and former UT-Arlington vice president for student affairs, knew Mr. Hayes in those years.”When Jim came to UTA, students [with disabilities] had to pick a major based on where they could get to class,” Gardner said. “There were no curb cuts.”
To dramatize the need for an accessible campus in the years before Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, Mr. Hayes challenged university officials to try to make it from their offices in Davis Hall to the University Center in wheelchairs. Only one administrator accepted, and he struggled, unable to get into a restroom because the doors were too narrow or to use phones because they were mounted out of reach. Not long afterward, changes started taking place, Gardner said. (Star-Telegram)
Following his graduation, he began the UT Arlington Office for Students with Disabilities in 1976, where he worked as an advisor and mentor for students with both physical and mental disabilities. He also served as coordinator of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act for UT Arlington.
Coach Hayes began the Wheelchair Basketball and Tennis program in the 1980’s. In his career he coached seven UTA teams that won National Wheelchair Basketball Association College Division National Championship titles, with several of his players winning National honors and representing UT Arlington on USA World Championship and Paralympic Championships. His UT Arlington program was one of the first in the country to offer full athletic scholarships for students with physical disabilities.
Coach Hayes was honored by the Alumni Association in 1982 as a Distinguished Alumnus.
Coach Hayes loved to fish, played the guitar and loved classical music as well as bands like Pink Floyd.
To read Coach Hayes’ obituaries, please click on the below links:
Star-Telegram
Dallas Morning News
The Shorthorn
