‘Athletes’ and ‘partners’ join forces for Beacon High
When Krystal Dembo, a sophomore at Beacon High School, hit a layup for the Bulldogs in a basketball game earlier this month at New Paltz, the parents and other fans in the bleachers clapped and cheered.
Dembo, who has Down syndrome, plays for the high school’s first Unified Sports team, in which students with physical and/or intellectual disabilities and those without compete together.
“My biggest goal is to show our school the talents of our special-ed kids,” said Michael Mullins, head coach for Unified Sports teams at Beacon. “The goal is for the kids to get a better appreciation for each other and to build community.”
The high school has 15 students on its Unified Sports basketball team, Mullins said, and had 12 students last fall on its Unified Sports bowling team.
Unified Sports began in New York 10 years ago with 12 high schools in the Albany area. It has since expanded to more than 250 schools in the state and 6,000 athletes, said Nathan Johnson, executive director of the Unified Sports Program for Special Olympics New York, which administers the program with the New York State Public High School Athletic Association.
Other area high schools with Unified Sports programs include Brewster, Wappingers, Bedford, Mahopac, Ossining and Newburgh. The statewide program may add soccer and bocce.
“For years the population of students with disabilities haven’t had this opportunity,” said Todd Nelson, assistant director of the state high school athletic association. “We’ve seen the direct benefits that these students get. Their behavior is better. Their academic success is better. Their stature in the community has gone up.”
Typically, half the athletes on a Unified Sports team are students with a disability. Their teammates are called “partners” and act as player-coaches. In basketball, that translates on the court to three athletes with disabilities and two partners. The athletes each earn a varsity letter and the teams have the option of competing in a playoff at the end of the season.
Kiarra Rodriguez, a partner, said she loves playing on the Beacon team. “It’s fun,” she said. “Seeing how happy they are when they score makes me happy.”
Rodriguez, who is also a member of the Beacon girls’ varsity basketball team, said she offers shooting advice in her coaching capacity: “I tell them to use the backboard rather than trying to lift the ball over the rim.”
Bringing together students with and without disabilities into a single community is important, said Arlene Dembo, Krystal’s mother.
“It’s all about a shared living experience where they can all grow together and everyone can develop to their full potential,” she said. “To keep them segregated limits what’s available to us as a whole when we’re learning from each other.”
The partner students also benefit, she said. “It gives those who consider themselves to be ‘typical’ an opportunity to view life through a different lens,” she said. “It allows them to develop emotionally in terms of being more empathetic.”
Dembo said her oldest daughter, Tiarra, was inspired by Krystal to get a doctoral degree in physical therapy.
Nelson said Unified Sports hopes to provide athletes with disabilities the lessons that sports usually provide: the value of hard work, teamwork and persistence.
To do that, he said, it’s important that the games be played and officiated like any other and not serve as “exhibitions” where rules aren’t enforced.
“We want to avoid condescending play,” said Nelson. “That just reinforces the notion that individuals with disabilities can’t be successful on their own. It means so much more when a player dribbles to the middle of the lane and kicks it out to an athlete on the three-point line and they make the basket.”
At Beacon’s first-ever Unified Sports basketball game, at New Paltz, the rules were followed, although somewhat loosely. Few fouls or traveling violations were called, but the referees did set limits. At one point, a Beacon player sank a long shot and the crowd went crazy because it appeared to be a three-pointer. But the referee, Brian Lindhorst of Kingston, shook his head and held up two fingers.
When the crowd booed, the longtime official smiled and indicated the shooter’s foot had been on the line.
“I love these kids,” Lindhorst said after the game. “Everyone wins here.”
The Bulldogs will host Wappingers at Beacon High School at 4:30 on Monday (May 15) and travel to Newburgh for a regional tournament on May 23.
