Getting a chance to shine on field
TOPSoccer gives kids with disabilities the chance to play, and win
TOP Soccer gives kids with disabilities the chance to play, and win.
PLYMOUTH » Many of the athletes who belong to Plymouth Township’s popular TOPSoccer team are too young to have marked the 25th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act’s on July 26. On the other hand, they were as excited as anyone about the Americans’ win at the recent FIFA Women’s World Cup. “Some of the kids are still talking about it,” says Joe Hunter, the Plymouth Meeting man who established the local team for physically and mentally-challenged youth six years ago. “And, believe me, they were right on it while it was happening.” The local team debuted with eight players but now has a roster of some 30 athletes diagnosed with everything from autism and sight impairment to Down syndrome and multiple sclerosis.
As Hunter explained at the outset, play “excludes no one.” And during fall matches at Greater Plymouth Community Center, the lineup includes kids in wheelchairs, on walkers, in arm and leg braces…whatever support devices they need to play.
TOPSoccer ( www.topsoccer.us) was created by U.S. Youth Soccer “to enable the thousands of young athletes with disabilities to develop their physical fitness, technical skills, courage and self-esteem through the joy and excitement of playing soccer.”
Hunter and fellow volunteers have seen all of that and more.
“At last count, we had about 15 (volunteer helpers), and we go from a four-year-old with autism – our youngest – to a 27-year-old with Down syndrome,” he says. “We grew the program to include high school students who are looking for community service credit, and two of our original high school helpers are now in college studying special ed.”
The organization also hosts a tournament for other TOPSoccer
teams at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School each fall.
Hunter’s decision to start TOPSoccer goes back to his days as a coach and officer with Plymouth Soccer Club and a conversation with the mentally-challenged sister of one player who confided she liked watching her brother’s games but wished she could play.
The program’s subsequent success inspired him to create an umbrella organization called Civic Green Special Athletes two years ago. It operates September through July and is open to boys or girls four-yearsold and up. Its 2014-15 season attracted some 24 participants from as far away as Philadelphia and Collegeville.
“I started Civic Green Special Athletes because the soccer season only ran for the 10 weeks following Labor Day,” explains Hunter, whose 20-year-old son plays soccer for Utica College. “Some of our players did go on to Special Olympics programs, but I was told that others
“The way I see it, for everything I’ve done wrong in my life, I must have done something right to be with these kids… and the amazing volunteers who make this program work.”
– Joe Hunter
found those programs ‘too competitive.’ I don’t have a special needs child, so I didn’t really know how to respond to that, but I eventually realized some children just feel more comfortable in a smaller program like ours.
“So after listening to some of the parents and kids, I went to Phil Brady (Plymouth’s assistant parks and rec director) and pitched the Civic Green idea as something that offered different sports year-round. Phil was right on board. He told me the township had been interested in doing something like that for years but just hadn’t found someone who was willing to run it… the ‘who’ part of the equation…so if I was willing, (the township) would get behind the idea 100 per cent, which they have.”
With that, Civic Green Special Athletes was born… and “has really taken off,” Hunter says.
“We’ve just completed our second year, and it’s been more successful than we could have imagined,” he continues. “We do three sessions of eight weeks each, starting with TOPSoccer right after Labor Day. We do floor hockey, volleyball and scooter basketball. We also play parachute games and do swimming and T-ball, so it’s more of a mixed sports program. We’ve added field trips to the program, and this January we’re going to add yoga and karate to the mix. My goal is to bring in 60 children, which I think is realistic.”
Although he and wife Gina don’t have a special needs child, he understands some parents’ hesitation about enrolling their offspring in such a program.
“When somebody tells me they’re scared or nervous about how their child will do, I tell them, I know you’ve slept with one eye open ever since your child was born,” says Hunter, an ex-ironworker who is now the corporate safety director for a highway construction company. “I get that. But what I tell them is, I promise we’ll take good care of them so that’s two hours a week that I’ll be the one worrying…two hours that you don’t have to. And let me tell you, it’s the best two hours. The way I see it, for everything I’ve done wrong in my life, I must have done something right to be with these kids…and the amazing volunteers who make this program work.”
The sign-up fee for each of Civic Green Special Athletes’ three sessions is $35 ($105 for all three). The program is based at Greater Plymouth Community Center, 2910 Jolly Road, Plymouth Meeting.