Wooden Volunteers at Adaptive Basketball Clinic
ONEONTA—Graham Wooden of Oneonta was one of 19 SUNY Oneonta students who volunteered at the annual Adaptive Basketball Clinic on campus.
The event, created through a partnership between the college’s Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences and EDD Adaptive Sports, was held in the Chase Gym on April 14. It allowed area individuals who have varying intellectual and adaptive disabilities to hone their skills in basketball through different technical and shooting drills.
Wooden is studying exercise science and is part of the SUNY Oneonta Class of 2024.
Over the past few years, SUNY Oneonta’s Sport and Exercise Sciences department has developed a relationship with EDD Adaptive Sports, a non-profit organization that offers adaptive sports programs to children and adults with any disability. EDD Adaptive Sports programs allow people of all ages to participate in a variety of free athletic and sport-related activities, including basketball, biking, kayaking, soccer, swimming, pickleball, rowing, and yoga.
According to a press release, this was the second year that SUNY Oneonta and EDD Adaptive Sports worked together to make the basketball clinic a successful day for everyone involved.
“The enthusiasm of the coaches helped make today a wonderful experience,” said Barbara Mackey, a member of the Board of Directors at EDD Adaptive Sports. “If you looked around the gym, you couldn’t spot a single face without a smile. And if there’s one thing that we want the students to take away from today, it’s a greater level of compassion, empathy, and understanding.”
Wooden and fellow exercise science senior Sarah Faulisi trained the other student volunteers on how to interact and work with the EDD participants. Faulisi and Wooden received a Student Research and Creative Activity grant funded by the SUNY Oneonta Foundation and SUNY Oneonta Alumni Association for their project, to develop a national online training program on educating volunteers working with athletes with disabilities.
Wooden and Faulisi presented their project, titled “Empowering Volunteers: Developing a Comprehensive Volunteer Training Program for Adapted Sport Events,” on Thursday, April 25 during the annual Student Research and Creative Activity showcase on campus.
“Research has shown that often people have big hearts when it comes to supporting athletes with disabilities, but don’t always have the proper training to provide developmentally appropriate coaching strategies,” said Dr. Katherine Griffes, assistant professor of Sport and Exercise Sciences and the faculty sponsor for Faulisi and Wooden’s research project. “Sarah and Graham have provided this training for all student volunteers and will be turning this training into online modules to make them more accessible for other groups who work with adapted athletes.”
Including Wooden, 18 of the student volunteers were from the SUNY Oneonta men’s and women’s basketball teams. The basketball teams picked the drills they wanted to teach to EDD’s athletes, resulting in a rotation through four stations that focused on dribbling, shooting, passing and defense. With participant ages ranging from six to 60, modified basketball hoops and other equipment allowed every athlete to maximize their performance.
“I’ve been working with individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities since high school,” said Faulisi, who expressed the importance of educating volunteers and making sure they adopted an adaptive mindset. “There’s just this stigma. If you tell someone that they can’t do something, or they think they’re not able to do something, they’re never going to try it.”
The basketball clinic concluded its second annual event with EDD Adaptive Sports President Rosalie Higgins and Board Director Mackey announcing the awards each athlete won. Each participant ran through a tunnel of encouraging arms created by the student volunteers, reaching Wooden and Faulisi at the end for a fist-bump, high-five or hug.
“My favorite part is just providing the opportunity,” said Wooden. “Inclusivity, I think, is something that is imperative: providing opportunities for every population. That’s always my priority. It’s very fulfilling to see the smiles on every athlete’s face. They always have something that they can take from this experience.”