This article is part of a regular series out of Berkshire Hills Regional School District in which we share student and staff news and learning for the goal of increasing communication touchpoints between the community and its public schools.
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Editor’s note: The following was written by Sheela Clary in her capacity as a staff member of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District.
On October 8, at 4:30 p.m., when the Spartans’ Unified Basketball team took on the Wahconah Warriors in their second game (but first at home), the bleachers at Monument Mountain Regional High School (MMRHS) were full of spectators and the air was full of cheers. The celebratory atmosphere amped up as the shots and scores accumulated, even though the Spartans never had the lead, and ultimately lost 77–60.
Who was the Spartans’ lead scorer?
“Not sure. We didn’t keep track!” said Coach Rizzo. While the end score does matter here, in other words, it is in no way the main event. Meaningful inclusion is.
MMHRS has served for many years as the local host for the Special Olympics, and Unified Sports was developed as an outgrowth of that event to provide a high-quality athletic experience in an inclusive environment. The program pairs students with and without intellectual disabilities to play together as a varsity team. The two Unified coaches, apart from Ellie Rizzo, are Board Certified Behavior Analyst Alyssa Sorrentino and Physical Therapist Heidi Cooper. As Coach Rizzo (also the assistant principal at Du Bois Middle School) explained, “All of us are in the field. I run the Special Olympics, the track and field events, so we know most of the students, and we’ve coached basketball.” They looked around and saw that Unified had taken off in Berkshire County, with established teams at Mount Greylock, Pittsfield High School, and Wahconah.
“We saw we had a large enough cohort, so we said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
This year Monument is cooping with Lee Middle and High School, but everyone wears the Spartans’ maroon-and-white uniforms, so you would never be able to tell who was representing which school. MMRHS’s team just came into being last year, so it is fair to say that the team is still finding itself.
The October 8 game started out with an instrumental National Anthem, then an enthusiastic Happy Birthday sung to sophomore James Reilly, who was celebrating his 16th birthday. Among the delightful highlights of the 48-minute game were the occasions when #14, Lee’s Sam Korte, took #2, Monument’s Grace Coughlin, by the hand, led her up a little closer to the hoop than the free-throw line, and handed her the ball. Before taking a shot, she would take a few moments to wave to her fans and fellow players in the crowd, whose cheering would then get louder.
How did the team come together? Du Bois eighth grader Trey Hyde, for one, was asked by Ms. Rizzo if he would like to participate. But Trey didn’t know anything about Unified, hadn’t ever interacted directly with students with special needs and was unsure what he was getting himself into. “Then he did the first practice,” said mom Lauren Hyde, “and he was like, ‘Oh, this is awesome. I love it. It’s so uplifting.” (Yes, he actually used the word “uplifting.”)
A couple of rows down from Lauren in the stands was School Committee member Jason St. Peter, cheering on his nephew Jake. “Unified is probably the most enjoyable event I go to, as someone involved in the school district. It’s great to see all the kids, the sportsmanship, as well as how hard they play and how fun it is. It’s just great all around.”
After the game, in which players played hard and had fun, the coaches reflected on what led them to start a Unified team and what the results have been since doing so. “We wanted to create more meaningful inclusion opportunities, and the friendships that we’ve seen develop? Amazing.” Mainstream students were meeting, in some cases, their developmentally disabled classmates for the first time. “I mean, they go to school together and see each other in the halls, and they’re making this [inclusion] look so easy. As I’m looking at them, I’m thinking, ‘If it’s easy for these 16-year-olds, then why isn’t it easy for everybody to be this inclusive?’”
To enter the Monument Mountain gym when the Unified basketball team has a game is to leave the troubled world behind and join in a party. “Everyone in Berkshire County should come to one of these games,” said Sorrentino, “anyone who needs to perk up a little bit.”
But the lion’s share of the benefits of Unified are surely for the players. In their first email to participants earlier in the fall, the coaches did not identify goals that included, say, reaching the state championships, but rather, “developing and promoting teamwork, health, fitness, friendship, dedication, and sportsmanship.”
Mission accomplished.
UPDATE: The Spartans’ Unified team had their first win on Tuesday, October 15, 37-30, against Lenox! The next game is Tuesday, October 22 at Lee, against Southwick at 4:30 p.m., and their final game will be on Wednesday, November 6, against Lenox. The public is welcome to attend!
