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When Erica Cammer first involved her son, Liam, with Champions for Life in Auburn, New York, she found it difficult to choose a sport he was genuinely interested in that also served his needs. The family was eventually directed to explore power soccer, the first sport created for electric wheelchairs. After Liam’s first practice, he fell in love with it.

“He felt connected with everyone, he was finally on a level playing field as his other friends,” Erica said. “He’s done many tournaments and he gets to play with his dad (who uses a wheelchair), which is really, it’s really cool.”

Liam and his team, CNY United, played power soccer games as part of Syracuse University’s Disability Cultural Center annual OrangeAbility celebration on April 14. OrangeAbility is a day of events where any person, regardless of ability, can participate in various adaptive sports.

This year, OrangeAbility featured two sporting events: a sled hockey tournament at the Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion in collaboration with CNY Flyers and CNY Adaptive Sports, and two power soccer games at the Barnes Center at The Arch spotlighting players from United States Power Soccer Association. This was the first year OrangeAbility held two events at SU.

“It’s nice to connect with Barnes because they connect, for students, real-life scenarios where they are going to see their friends involved in sports that may not traditionally be hosted,” DCC director Carrie Ingersoll-Wood said.

CNY United and a USPSA team from New York City played in high-energy four v. four games on Sunday. Two poles on either end of the court marked the boundaries of the goal. Players swiftly moved across the space on wheels, maneuvering a regulated power soccer ball to their teammates and verbally signaling for help in assists and mid-court plays.

Faith Austin, another CNY United player, participated in Sunday’s OrangeAbility event. She has actively played with the team for nearly seven years.

“My experience has been nothing short of an honor to play with them, to be a part of them,” Austin said. “I feel like I’m part of a team as I should feel because when we’re on the court, we forget about our disabilities and turn them into abilities.”

Austin, a central New York native, joined CNY United in 2009 after being encouraged by her elementary school pen pal. Over the last 13 years, USPSA Adaptive Sports Advocate Peyton Sefick has guided her through CNY United and the world of power soccer, she said.

OrangeAbility launched in 2012 under the direction of disability advocate Eddie Zaremba and members of SU’s Disability Student Union who wanted the campus community to research adaptive sports and better understand their highly competitive nature. The group introduced wheelchair basketball as the event’s first game.

Ingersoll-Wood said last year’s event saw a large participation rate from the university’s fraternities and sororities. She said she didn’t have community members signing in to participate in the games but, at one point, they were streaming into the gym. To her, it was wonderful to see students participating as allies, learning about adaptive sports and enjoying the moment.

“These athletes are incredible,” she said. “You can’t really describe it, so that is why it’s so important for allies to also play along with their friends.”

CNY Adaptive Sports and SU Professor Seth Gitner have partnered with DCC over the last two years to set OrangeAbility into motion. Ingersoll-Wood said their work together fosters a “beautiful” connection between community members, students, faculty and staff.

“I started to understand and learn about our partners in the community who are working inside of disability to create better spaces for members who are living here and to extend that out to families,” Ingersoll-Wood said. “Syracuse University is a leader in adaptive sports.”

She said she also chose to work with Sefick because he has been an “incredible partner” for spreading awareness about inclusivity in athletics. Although their partnership is newer, they’ve quickly become excited about opportunities to put any student in a sports chair so they can experience power soccer from a level they may have never thought about before, she said.

DCC Program Coordinator Aaliyah Muolo Vergara said there’s a stigma against people who consider themselves disabled. Sometimes people negate invisible disabilities like addiction or mental health, so respect should be prioritized, she said.

“We all are important and we all should be heard and our feelings are valid,” Muolo Vergara said. “This is just really empowering to bring the community together, those who identify as disabled and those who don’t, just to bring more awareness to what disability culture is, because it is a culture.”

Muolo Vergara said OrangeAbility is sentimental for her because she was temporarily wheelchair-bound after being involved in a car accident two years ago where she broke her pelvis. She said she was in the hospital for 16 days and couldn’t walk for nearly six weeks.

“It was a really tough thing for me to go through mentally and physically,” Muolo Vergara said. “Being here now, I’m very grateful to be here and be able to be walking and stuff like that, but I will never be who I once was physically and mentally.”

Her experience was also a period of changing and growing, which inspired her to begin working at the DCC, she said. In her role, she can bring more awareness to the disability community because there are so many subjects regarding accessibility that need to be changed, both on SU’s campus and the city overall.

CNY United is one of many USPSA teams paving the way for power soccer’s presence. Erica said before playing in the Barnes Center at The Arch on Sunday, they were in Vermont and, in a couple of weeks, the team will travel to Indiana for their final tournament. She said it’s amazing to have Liam on the same playing field as them.

“Sports are a really great equalizing place where everyone enjoys the competition of the game,” Ingersoll-Wood said. “To watch the emotional experience and the connections and the friendships that are built on the courts, on the ice, on the pitch, on the turf, wherever it is, they understand that competitive piece, and it’s just something inside of human nature to where it draws us all together.”

Similarly, Austin said her CNY United teammates are not just friends, they’re family. She referenced Liam, the youngest of the squad, and said because of the age range, she and her peers have been able to teach him how to play power soccer. To her, it’s amazing that they can come together as one and showcase their different skills and abilities.

CNY United and OrangeAbility have made Austin feel more than accepted, she said. As Austin is the only woman on the team, she said playing on the team is like playing with “brothers.”

“It gives me a sense of hope and freedom knowing that I am capable of doing something, and there are people out there that are willing to accept me for who I am,” Austin said.

Published on April 16, 2024 at 11:50 pm