By Judy O’Gorman Alvarez
Next year Challenged Youth Sports will celebrate its 25th year of giving kids with disabilities a chance to play and enjoy the same sports so many of their siblings and friends have been playing.
A sports program for children and teens with disabilities, CYS has grown from a small Little League team to a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) organization that assists more than 150 families throughout the Two River area, offering basketball, soccer, Little League softball, golf, flag football, tennis and cheerleading.
For Paul J. Hooker, founder of CYS, the time was right to move the program another step further by making it national.
With a new name and new logo, but same mission, RallyCap Sports rolled out Sunday, Oct. 19, at Bowling Green State University, in Bowling Green, Ohio.
“It was a 10,” said Hooker, who attended the official RallyCap Sports kickoff at his alma mater and then flew home to accept the Norma Todd Service Award with his wife Margo from Lunch Break at its annual gala.
With some 50 Bowling Green student volunteers helping out, the university’s indoor football stadium was divided into sections for golf, football and soccer.
“We had the girls’ golf team, football players and soccer players out there helping the kids,” he said, “and we had about 30 to 40 kids with disabilities from all over northwest Ohio.”
The results: “The parents were thrilled, the kids had a great time and then they signed up for soccer.”
Matching RallyCap Sports with colleges is an idea Hooker believes will enable the program to reach even more kids with disabilities and allow them to enjoy the sports so many of their friends play.
With the help of the dean of the business school at Bowling Green, Hooker was paired with a graduating senior who was instrumental in setting up RallyCap Sports at the university. If all goes well, Hooker plans to hire the student to bring the program to other colleges across the U.S.
“Colleges have tons of groups to volunteer – fraternities, sororities and other groups,” he said. “And universities have facilities – and awesome stadiums. Teams will be involved. There are so many students with so many talents and abilities to help.
“Ideally, the college students, who are helping, will graduate and, hopefully, go back to their communities and spread the message and (continue the program),” he said.
A quarter century ago, when Hooker was a Lincroft Little League coach for his children, he was inspired by the 12-year-old sister of one of the players.
A devoted fan on the sidelines, she had spina bifida and used a wheelchair. “I asked Nicole how she was doing and she said, ‘This stinks. How come my brothers can play Little League and I can’t?’”
As a result, Hooker and his wife Margo, who raised their children in Middletown and now live in Sea Girt, founded Challenged Youth Sports to create a positive sports environment for the special-needs community.
“It’s more of a socialization program as opposed to learning the nuts and bolts of a sport,” Hooker said.
“The stories are endless,” he said, “25 years of them … I get a story weekly from parents about how (the program) transformed their kid’s life to be able to do something and have some success at something instead of sitting at home.”
For the Vadon family, the program has been a great experience, especially for their daughter Meghan, 16, who has been participating in almost all the sports since she was about 5. “It’s been a place for her to come to be with her friends,” her father, Dave Vadon, said. “It lets her participate.”
Meghan, a sophomore at Middletown South High School, also has the opportunity to see some of her schoolmates who volunteer with the Challenged Youth Sports in and out of school.
Nancy Geant has been volunteering with CYS since her son, TJ, now 27 years old, played sports in the program.
“It gave him an opportunity to play, just as his brother did,” she said. The sense of inclusion is important to kids with disabilities and the program did just that. “Just as his brother headed out to basketball, TJ had his basketball game to go to, too.”
Geant coordinates the “buddies” of the program, the invaluable young volunteers who scramble across the soccer fields with enthusiastic – and sometimes zigzagging – players, or improvise games one-on-one with a young player in a wheelchair. Buddies may be religious education students or honor society candidates accumulating community hours but many times they become dedicated volunteers long after their quota is filled.
The most memorable feedback for Hooker is “not only all the children with disabilities that it helped, but the parents who told us that their able-bodied child, when 12 and 13, went on to graduate with degrees in special ed. All because of the affection they developed for this population.”
In addition to the buddies and the parents who coordinate and coach, several high school coaches volunteer their time on the fields.
The program also holds Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Halloween dances and ice skating events. With the assistance of the Monmouth County Park System, they have built two fully accessible playgrounds for children of all abilities.
“Now, we’re looking for national funds to take (RallyCap Sports) to all the colleges and universities,” said Hooker, who recently sold his luxury household linen importing business. He wants to spread the message: “There are people with disabilities everywhere.”
Additional information about the programs is available by visiting www.rallycapsports.org or www.cysp.org.
