University of Cincinnati starts sports program for athletes with disabilities

A new adaptive sports program at the University of Cincinnati is making dreams come true for college athlete dreams with disabilities.

The program began this year with the help of faculty from the UC College of Allied Health Sciences. Faculty worked with a junior wheelchair basketball team, and founded The Bridge Adaptive, a nonprofit organization.

“They saw the need of a collegiate adaptive sports program, because we were getting to a point in Cincinnati where we’re producing a lot of really good high school athletes and then sending them off to other colleges like Arizona and Alabama and Michigan and Illinois,” said Jacob Counts, program director and coach of the Adaptive Sports Program. “So, we were basically exporting our talent.”

Counts played wheelchair basketball at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and is a former Paralympian who competed in the 2008 Paralympics Games in Beijing.

Counts says the first sports offered are wheelchair tennis and adaptive track and field with four athletes participating.

“I see it growing for sure,” said Counts. “Especially as we get in the recruiting cycles and word gets out, and then as high school athletes are graduating and looking for schools to draw on a lot of students from the greater Cincinnati area, but also across the state and regionally as well.”

Counts says the goal is to expand the number of athletes to about 30 within the next five years.

“It’s really important to give us disabled athletes the same opportunities that they’re able-bodied peers have,” said Counts. “College is definitely a great place for a young person to grow academically and as a person, but it’s also crucial for athletic success. Those are years where athletes really develop their skills and prepare to take the next step.”

Competitions like the Paralympics would follow a university career.

The UC Adaptive Athletics program competed last weekend in its first wheelchair tennis tournament in Michigan and placed fourth out of five teams.