On Friday afternoons at the Clubhouse in East Hampton, a smiling group of high schoolers takes to the bowling lanes to let loose after a long week of school and get to know their fellow students. At first glance, it’s an unlikely bunch, with varying abilities and aptitudes, but it works in a million different ways.
“It’s awesome,” said Ethan Mitchell, the unified bowling head coach. “What’s really amazing about this is getting some of these partners who are usually the stars of their basketball team or their football team, and they’re coming here and playing a helping, supporting role, rather than a leading one.”
Unified bowling brings together partners from the general education population of the high school and athletes with special needs, many of whom are part of the Life Skills program. The partners offer all kinds of assistance, from positioning a ramp to help a student in a wheelchair to encouraging a reluctant participant to give bowling a try. That reluctant student, Stefanny Sepulveda, bowled a strike after gentle encouragement from her partner, Miles Menu, a star basketball player, swimmer, and lifeguard who made his first ocean save at age 13.
“I started off going to Inclusion Club [on Wednesdays] and playing board games with the kids, and I saw that they had unified bowling and basketball and this year I wasn’t doing a spring sport. I usually do track. So I decided I wanted to do it,” Menu said. “I love playing board games with them and just hanging out with them, so bowling is so much fun.”
Unified bowling meets at the All Star in Riverhead on Mondays, which also serves as the team’s home lanes for competition. Between bowling and Inclusion Club, the goal is to give the kids something to do at least three days a week. “People don’t realize how few opportunities this population has outside of the school building to go somewhere safe and be athletic and be with their peers,” Mitchell explained.
His co-coach, Nicole Calloway, says bowling, in particular, has been a special treat. “They look forward to it. Some of them have never been here, so the first time they walked in, their eyes lit up and they were really excited and they love being with their partners.”
The unified bowling team has a spreadsheet to keep track of bowlers’ progress. Austin Miller has raised his average from 40 to 70, sometimes topping 100. Miller and Joshua Rodriguez now give Menu a run for his money.
“I did a good job today,” Rodriguez said. “My best score is 145. I am better than Miles. Best score is a strike and then a spare. I got both.”
But Menu doesn’t mind at all. “Oh my god, I love it,” he said. “I’ve never walked out of doing something with unified and been in a bad mood. It always just makes me so happy. I love it.”
While he shows up weekly, that kind of commitment isn’t necessary to make a difference, Coach Mitchell said. “Not everyone has to be on the court or on the wood to be impacting these kids. Just the fact that you know that they went bowling the day before and you can ask them about that is huge. And that is a beautiful little step.”
But there is something truly special about spending an hour with these athletes. It’s the best way to experience a great big smile and thumbs up from a star like Charlie Feyh.
“That’s Springs’s own Charlie Feyh. He’s the mayor,” Mitchell said, smiling himself. “The Springs community really does an incredible job of including their most uniquely-abled peers. He’s one of the friendliest boys you’ll ever meet. Super happy, stoked to be part of anything he can.”
Charlie said bowling is cool, he has nice friends, this was a fun Friday, and Coach Ethan is the best. But Mitchell believes it’s the fully-abled partners who truly get the most out of unified sports.
“It’s really beautiful, the growth that the general education students actually get out of this. This is an awesome opportunity for our athletes, but it’s an even larger opportunity for our partners as well. Exposure and experience is so important,” Mitchell said. “The more times you have with each other, the more comfortable you are with each other, the more you realize what you have in common. It’s really such a powerful moment to have all of these kids involved as peers and as teammates.”
