Not impressed yet?

Try this: The 32-year-old Hogsett is a quadriplegic and has been in a wheelchair since he was 19. He plays a brand of rugby that involves specially designed chairs that look like rolling fortresses. The game and some of its players are the subject of the documentary Murderball, which opened Friday at the Esquire.

"I had to play with a brace," said Hogsett recently in Denver. "Every time I got hit my nose would run. The hits were knocking the snot out of me."

Talking with Hogsett reminds you of one of the points Murderball emphatically makes: You can put the athlete in a wheelchair, but you can't turn him into a shut-in. Jocks are jocks.

Here's how Hogsett wound up in a wheelchair: He was a 19-year-old in Idaho, and like many kids that age, found himself at a drinking party. He got crosswise with another kid, tempers flared and Hogsett was thrown off a deck. He fell 10 feet and landed on his neck; he became a C-5/C-6 quadriplegic.

Sounds like a formula for a bitter life? Guess again.

"I have a fun life," said Hogsett, a man of energy and enthusiasm. "I was a risk taker before I got injured. I'm still a risk taker."

Scott's six- to seven-day-a- week training regimen includes a daily 26-mile ride on a hand-bike and weightlifting. He plays wheelchair rugby. He has bungee jumped. On the day I met him he was in his "everyday chair," as compared to the bigger yet speedier chairs used for rugby.

"You can take a hit in those chairs. If I got hit in this chair, I'd fall over in two seconds," said Hogsett. "The game is fierce. You're strapped into your chair. You become one with the chair. You're like a torpedo."

It doesn't seem to occur to Hogsett that not everyone would view being "like a torpedo" a good thing, but rugby's his sport. Like many quadriplegics, he was introduced to it during his rehab.

"It takes five to eight years to learn the sport. I've played at the highest level (with the U.S. team at the Paralympics) and still haven't mastered it."

There are some 40 wheelchair rugby teams in the country. Athletes try out for the national team, which will take only 12 players to the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. (Paralympics stands for parallel Olympics).

Smash-and-crash contact seems to be one of the keys to wheelchair rugby. "How many sports are there where you can hit someone as hard as you want? The whole point of the game is to hit the guy with the ball as hard as you can."

If you see the film, you'll notice that the guys who play "Murderball," as the sport has been nicknamed, aren't big on feeling sorry for themselves.

"I've never given in to a 'wheelchair life.' The guys in the movie are the same way. It's not easy in the beginning, but you can live an active life in a wheelchair. This may sound arrogant, but I've done more in the 13 years since I've been in the chair than most able-bodies do in a lifetime."

Hogsett is a determined fellow. It took five tries to make the U.S. team, and he's not guaranteed a position in the next tryouts. Those who play at the sport's highest levels pretty much must devote their lives to it.

Does Hogsett dream about being able-bodied?

"In the beginning I never had dreams of me being in a chair. Now I have this dream. I'm playing football, and I'm able bodied. Right in the middle of the dream, I realize that I shouldn't be doing this. Then I kind of melt and can't move."

He takes this as a sign of acceptance of who he is. And he hopes Murderball will help define people in wheelchairs by what they can do, instead of what they can't.

A few minutes with Hogsett, who plays for the Phoenix Heat when he's not playing for Team USA, is all it takes to dispel most stereotypes about people in wheelchairs.

"People sometimes say, 'You're in a wheelchair. Should you really be playing wheelchair rugby?' I say, 'What's the worst that could happen? I could fall on my neck and end up in a wheelchair?' "

Hogsett smiles, shrugs and rolls on with the rest of his day.

denersteinb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5424