 Evans at the 2024 Summer Paralympics | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Nationality |  Australia |
| Born | 18 September 1990 |
| Sport | |
| Disability class | 2.0 |
| Club | Perth Wheelcats |
Philip "Phil" Evans (born 18 September 1990) is a 2.0 point wheelchair basketball player from Australia. He was a member of the Rollers at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. [1]
Evans was born on 18 September 1990 and his hometown is Perth, Western Australia. [2] He attended Sacred Heart College, Sorrento. [3] In September 2013, after having celebrating a premiership football win with friends, crashed his car on the way home. [4] The car accident him fracturing his T-11 and T-12 vertebrae, paralysing him from the waist down. [4] In 2018, Evans was awarded the Craig H Nielsen Scholarship, at the University of Arizona, where he majored in business. [5] [3]
In 2024, he is employed at the University of Western Australia as an Inclusion Coordinator. [3]
Evans played many sports growing up including Australia rules football, indoor and outdoor cricket, mixed netball, rugby union, tennis and golf. After his accident, he coached a senior Whitford's AFL side, where he played A Grade Football in 2009-2010 and 2012–2013. [6]
He was introduced to wheelchair basketball through attending ‘come and try’ day at the Herb Graham Recreation Centre organised by Rebound WA. [4] He was selected to play for the Perth Wheelcats in Australia's National Wheelchair Basketball League and this led him to be offered a University of Arizona scholarship to join their wheelchair basketball program. [4]
He was a member of the Rollers team at the 2024 IWBF Asia-Oceania Championships in Thailand, where they won the gold medal and qualified for 2024 Summer Paralympics. [7]
At the 2024 Paris Paralympics, he was a member of the Rollers that finished fifth with a win/loss record of 3-3. [8]