Young players make their dreams come true in Challenger Division

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Young players make their dreams come true in Challenger Division

Around Osceola

Wednesday, 21 April 2010 00:00

By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer
The St. Cloud Little League is growing like, well, a Little Leaguer. It’s become the largest of the state's organizations, passing the city of Miami’s Little League in number of players.
The league’s Challenger Division — a set of teams especially for those with physical and mental challenges — has grown along with it, from 17 players on two teams last fall to 47 among four teams this spring.
The league’s motto is, “Never Let Reality Spoil Your Dreams.”
Challenger Commissioner John Giambrone said that a good fall season dramatically helped the spring numbers; word of mouth was the best, but not only, advertising.
“It’s about time that we got this started. There’s so many kids who came to watch their siblings and friends who couldn’t play,” he said, noting that St. Cloud and Celebration have the county's only Challenger programs. “We sent fliers to all the schools and we worked with UCF’s autism program.”
The Challenger Division was established by Little League Baseball in 1989 to enable those from ages 5 to 22 with physical and mental challenges to enjoy baseball in the same way their able-bodied friends and family do. The organization’s Web site cites 30,000 children participating in 900 Challenger divisions worldwide.
Giambrone said SCLL follows the Little League guidelines of teaming up players according to a player’s physical functionality, rather than age. Games can be played as T-ball games, coach-pitched, player-pitched or a combination of the three.
“This has been really awesome, it’s the first time most of these kids have been on a ball field,” Giambrone said.
SCLL does all of its Challenger activities on Saturday. Teams practice at 9 a.m. for a half-hour before games begin, all finishing up before noon.
Teams go all the way through the lineup each inning and scoring generally isn’t kept. But aside from that, Challenger players wear the same uniforms, shoulder patches and safety equipment as other Little League players.
SCLL also employs the use of “buddies” for the Challenger players, who assist the players and are nearby to help when needed, but encourage the players to bat and make plays themselves.
It’s that interaction, Giambrone said, that seems to be the Challenger Division’s biggest benefit to its biggest stars.
“It’s awesome to see these kids’ faces when their buddy takes their hand and runs the bases with them,” he said. “It gets to be therapy enough. Then you look at the faces of the parents in the stands, it’s just priceless.”
The buddies get an emotional lift, as well. Christy Elliott is one, along with her 11-year-old stepdaughter. She coached a team for five years, and when she saw a league game last fall, she promptly told Giambrone, a longtime friend, to “sign me up.”
Elliott works with a team of kids in wheelchairs and is “buddied-up” with Theresa, who Christy “loves to pieces.”
“It’s the smiles and the laughing we see from the kids that just gets you,” she said. “You see them Saturday mornings and they’re all excited, saying, ‘It’s baseball day!’
“I think of the things I complain about, and then I see them play. It really renews your outlook on life.”