On Feb. 11, Grant High School’s Team Unified Basketball team faced off against a group of Grant staff members in the gym.  The game was a testament to the Unified Sports program’s ability to foster connection and community within Grant High School.

To Maddie Cuda, a special education teacher at Grant, social and physical environments are what disable people, not the inherent “deficits” that society categorizes them within.

“I think that traditionally, Americans view it as medical — that we look at things from a deficit perspective, whereas an environmental model is what I approach,” they say. Unified Sports, Cuda says, changes the athletic environment and therefore makes sports more accessible.

Each player in the game had their own individual moments in a pre-game ritual: The students’ names were called, and they had a celebratory run or jump around the court.

Although it’s still early in the Unified Basketball season, Robie Rogers, an enthusiastic member of the team, feels empowered by the strong start; he says that he feels “like kicking butt and winning all the games.”

Another staff member who played at the game was Randy Heath — a health and physical education teacher at Grant and the grandfather of Unified player Drea Nelson. Heath urges students to support the team: “Say ‘hi’; be kind,” he says. “I know how much it means to the kids when they’re included.”

Stephen Liggio, another special education teacher at Grant, says he’s found it rewarding to see one of his students, junior Marciano Stewart, play Unified basketball. “All the best parts of him come out on the Unified team,” he says.

Stewart encourages students who are nervous to try out the sport to take the risk. “You can do it,” he says.