With the efforts of one Naperville mom, more athletes with intellectual disabilities will play alongside other athletes on a unified soccer team.
Although Indian Prairie School District 204 will offer about 11 unified soccer teams this fall, Naperville District 203 will not have any.
Kish Pisani and her husband, Paul, started DuPage Valley Special Athletes more than three years ago and added the unified soccer team this year.
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“We started the soccer program because we wanted to provide another opportunity for competition, socialization and physical activity for athletes with special needs,” Pisani said.
Pisani’s son, Louis, will be a senior at Naperville North High School this fall. Since Naperville North does not have unified soccer, the Pisani’s decided to start a team through DVSA.
“We truly believe in the unified sports concept,” Pisani said. “It’s known that people with disabilities work well with peers, and until it can come to our school, we want to offer this opportunity to kids in our area.”
Louis competes on the District 203 Special Olympics basketball, bowling and track teams, and volunteers as a varsity football and basketball manager at Naperville North.
“He’s around athletes at North all the time, so they’re very excepting and really good peer models,” Pisani said. “He’s around the whole athletic world very much, and several of those athletes are involved with DuPage Valley Special Athletes, because they met Louis at North.”
The DVSA Unified Soccer Team will be made up of athletes ages 14-22 in the Naperville, Lisle, Warrenville and Wheaton area.
Pisani said she hopes to have enough athletes for two teams. Six players with intellectual diabilities and six without intellectual disabilities will be on each team.
“We’re all about teaching the fundamentals of the sport, and that includes sportsmanship, athletic ability and conditioning,” Pisani said. “For the most part, we’re dealing with those with special needs, but we look at them as athletes first.”
The team will participate in a regional tournament in October, which will provide an opportunity to compete in a state tournament later that month.
Pisani said anyone interested in information on the team can contact her at [email protected].