by Mary Kate Carew
United Spinal Association and U Can Play 2 hosted an adaptive sports clinic for the benefit of New York City students with disabilities at the 168th Street Armory on Wednesday, May 12. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein was in attendance. This program was held in conjunction with the Department of Education’s Office of Adaptive Physical Education. Approximately 60 students with physical disabilities in grades 3, 4 and 5 participated in the clinic.
“The men and women from the United Spinal Association, recruited by Paul Tobin and Victor Calise to work as coaches, did a wonderful job with our New York City public school athletes,” said Dee Lewis, Director of the Office of Adaptive Physical Education. “I believe that, as adults, we are challenged to serve as role models for young people today. The work done by United Spinal at the Clinic did indeed meet this challenge.”
The event kicked off U Can Play 2, a new program that will add wheelchair volleyball, sled hockey, hand cycling, and track and field to the New York City Public School System’s adaptive sports program with the help of its 155 adaptive physical education instructors. Beginning this fall, U Can Play 2 will provide physically challenged students with special instruction for using adapted equipment and fields that accommodate physical limitations without impeding participation. The program is the brainchild of Dr. Gerard Varlotta, Director of Sports Rehabilitation at NYU Medical Center’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine/Hospital for Joint Disease.
Adaptive sports are versions of different games that allow individuals with disabilities to compete. For example, wheelchair softball is contested on a paved surface with bases painted on the field of play. Most people with lower extremity impairments, which prevent them from playing able-bodied baseball, are eligible to play wheelchair softball, particularly persons with a spinal cord injury, amputation, multiple sclerosis or polio.
The three-hour clinic allowed the students, in small groups of 10 to 12, to rotate between four stations featuring wheelchair basketball, wheelchair softball, wheelchair tennis and volleyball. Additionally, there were exhibitions of sled hockey and handcycling. Clinic instructors included Paralympic athletes along with members of United Spinal’s sports teams. In addition to a boxed lunch, the participants received an event t-shirt and a bag filled with gifts donated by local sports teams.
“It’s not only kids who can walk that should be able to do sports,” said 10-year-old participant Alezae Samuells, summing up the lesson that the organizers hoped the participants would take away. “Everybody should be able to do sports.”
Mary Kate Carew is Assistant Public Affairs Officer.
