Athletes, Actors, and Friends Redefine Life with Disabilities
By Aneri Pattani, Jane Casshingham, and Chinyen Chang
Basketball is associated with the athletic. Theater is associated with the dramatic. And friendships are assumed to form between people who are very similar.
But there are plenty of people who break these molds.
They excel at basketball even when people doubt their ability. They pursue the theater arts even when people question that choice. They build friendships that would surprise others.
These are people who do not allow their disabilities to define them. They create their own labels instead. Sometimes actor. Sometimes athlete. Sometimes friend.
The Athletes
Athletes with disabilities often practice just as frequently as college athletes, but they rarely get to show off their skills in the same type of arena. Their fans are often just parents and friends.
Todd Borchers set out to change this by launching the Special Spirit Games six years ago at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. As a Special Olympics coach, Borchers saw how hard his athletes worked, and he wanted to give them the full college experience. He thought having them play on a college basketball court with a college crowd would allow them to feel like basketball superstars.
The game was such a success that it has now spread to two other colleges: University of New Hampshire and Northeastern University in Boston. Borchers hopes it continues to spread to colleges across the country, since “that’s what these athletes deserve,” he says.
The Northeastern University Dance Team cheered on the Special Spirit Game athletes from afar.
Lynn won, 50-35, against Whitney Academy at Northeastern’s first annual Special Spirit Game.
The Actors
“Acting is something that you associate with Hollywood,” says Matthew Jameson, a college student with disabilities, “but I think we need to realize anyone can do it and everyone should be included.”
Jameson has been a member of an inclusive theater program called Access to Theatre for several years now, and he says ATT helps students overcome the barrier of Hollywood stereotypes.
“There is no weight of expectations,” he says. “You can just be yourself.”
As an inclusive theater skills program, ATT allows youth with and without disabilities to come together and engage in acting exercises. During the school year, the program meets once a week at the Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton. Over the summer, they meet in Boston and write, act, and produce an original play.
The program is unique not only in its emphasis on the creative arts, but also in that it doesn’t aim to help students. Instead, it aims to empower them to advocate for themselves and work to break down the barriers they will face in life.
There are relatively few creative arts programs like ATT in New England. Some of them are shown in the map below:
The Friends
Alex Linden and Julie Belsky enjoy sharing a good pizza. They like checking out the latest movies. And they love water parks.
They have more similarities than differences, they say, often surprising people.
Linden is a 23-year-old physical therapy major at Northeastern University, while Belsky is a 32-year-old Newton resident who works at Target.
The two are best buddies.
They met five years ago through the Northeastern University chapter of Best Buddies – an international organization that aims to end the isolation of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. (Read more about Northeastern Best Buddies here.)
Since then, Linden and Belsky have grown to be close friends. They text and talk, Facetime and call, and go out together regularly.
Belsky’s disabilities don’t factor into their friendship, they say. They’re just like any other friends.
Photos show Linden and Belsky’s friendship over the years.
NU Storytellers 