Adaptive sports: a route of transformation and a pathway to belonging
The Minnesota Adaptive Athletics Association redefines high school varsity athletics by offering opportunities for students with physical and cognitive impairments.
By Hannah Hunhoff and Ella Roberts, reporters
Mia Camp knew she was different from the rest of the students at the second highest ranked athletic high school in Minnesota, St. Michael-Albertville High School. She knew she wasn’t as physically able to play sports as they did, so she settled for a team manager position. She showed up to practices early, lugged water to players and cleaned up after games.
The closest she would ever get to being on a team.
That is an example of one of the many lies that students with physical or cognitive disabilities tell themselves when it comes to athletics. It contributes to the countless barriers that adaptive athletics strive to overcome.
Decked out in their Dakota United Hawks blue and gray jerseys, Nick Peterson and Ashton Parupsky — students in Bethel University’s BUILD program, a two-year comprehensive transition program for students with intellectual disabilities — rallied around their 17 teammates. The combination of students represent Apple Valley, Eagan, Lakeville North, Lakeville South, Eastview, Rosemount, Henry Sibley and Hastings–and form a tight huddle during floor hockey practice. Then, the Hawk’s head coach offered up a motivational speech.
”I really liked the atmosphere of this whole experience. So, it felt like I was really a true player in it. My teammates were so good to me and we had a really good season overall,” Peterson said.
In January of 2020, Peterson and Parupsky were in the midst of playing one of their final floor hockey games of the season. Peterson rushed down the Eastview High School basketball court with his white floor hockey stick in hand and black helmet over his head. Playing adaptive floor hockey has not only enabled the players to experience the thrill of athletics, but has been a constant source of community and friendship for both Peterson and Parupsky. The Hawks ended up winning 11–3 that day, qualifying them for the state tournament.
“I’m so glad that I joined because I would have regretted it if I didn’t. I’ve met a lot of really good connections” Parupsky said.
Today, thousands of high school varsity athletes walk through the doors of their school, sporting their team’s apparel with honor and a wide grin on their face. They have a certain swagger about them. As a team member of the Hawks, Peterson and Parupsky are high school varsity athletes, just like the other students.
At 10:55 before the 11 a.m. bell rang, Al Charles sat in choir class as a video appeared in the EastView High School news program. The other students erupted in cheer as they saw their classmate Charles’ face on the screen. He beamed with confidence and passion.
In 2015, Charles’ floor hockey team, the Dakota United Hawks, won the state championship. Before adaptive sports, winning a state championship was something he’d never get to experience.
“You know I’d seen the Wild win the championship before but I’ve never gotten to and so in 2015 it just was like you know, is this really happening right now?”
Charles, Parupsky, Peterson and Camp’s athletic involvement is no longer a far-stretched day-dream, but moves beyond the bleachers thanks to the Minnesota Adaptive Athletics Association (MAAA) mission “to provide youth with disabilities the same opportunity as other students to enjoy the benefits of a quality high school sports program.”
“Why can’t we earn letters and get jackets like everybody else?”
The MAAA was born out of this very question asked by students at Marshall University, Jim Chirsty and Bob Anderson, who would go on to rewrite the national hockey league rule book for adaptive athletics, that grabbed their physical education teacher Ed Prohofsky’s attention. He couldn’t tell them why, so instead, he made it possible. Prohofsky started to push hard with the high school league.
“With all the different coaching places that I was at and the good things that have happened to me, nothing was better in my life for my family than the adaptive program.” — Ed Prohofsky, adaptive sports pioneer
“[Prohofsky] took that group of students and set the framework for a couple possibilities for playing adaptive soccer and adaptive floor hockey back in Minneapolis in 1970,” Marcus Onsum Executive Secretary of Minnesota Adaptive Association said. Onsum’s the kind of guy who would help a young athlete learn how to kick a soccer ball for the first time, get his past athletes jobs they never thought were possible and give up coaching after 28 years to help the growth of adaptive athletics.
At the time, the students were familiar with playing floor hockey in their physical education classes, leading Prohofsky to get to work on adapting its rules and regulations.
“With all the different coaching places that I was at and the good things that have happened to me, nothing was better in my life for my family than the adaptive program,” Ed Prohofksy said in an interview with Disability Landscape in 2021.
At a point in history when women weren’t allowed to step foot in any sports arena — when Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was yet to be law — and the United States was in combat with North Vietnam, Prohofsky focused his equal rights activism on creating athletic opportunities for his students.
The process of getting adaptive athletics sanctioned as a sport in the Minnesota State High School League would take a million laps around the hockey rink.
In 1974, the fruit of Prohofsky’s undying belief in adaptive athletics saw the light of day when the first organized league of Adaptive Floor Hockey was established. Prohofsky helped establish four respective teams, which became delegated for second-year students in 1975. These events lead to the crowning moment in adaptive sports athlete’s high school experience in 1976: Receiving their athletic letters.
No longer were these athletes confined to enjoying popcorn and candy stands as their classmates skated around the rink. They were immersed in the thrill of the sport, stepping into an opportunity that never awaited them before.
“But then as we got to 1982, there were enough programs around and enough people with connections to the MSHSL that said, hey, you know, our athletes deserve the same recognition as all the other athletes,” Onsum said.
With the first round of adaptive softball games scheduled, 1984 marked the formal formation of the MAAA. Since then, it has created a more inclusive, equitable Minnesota sports climate that invites all athletes to reap the benefits of athletics.
The height of Prohofsky and other adaptive sports advocates work was also seen in 1992: The year when MSHSL voted to adopt adaptive sports as a sanctioned sport. Onsum said the MAAA’s work in the beginning to host MSHSL sanctioned activities sparked miles of positive change in Minnesota Adaptive Athletics.
Onsum’s passion for adaptive sports was born on the pavement of his childhood neighborhood, tossing a football around and playing catch with his two younger siblings with muscular dystrophy who have depended on wheelchairs for daily mobility. Onsum’s introduction to adaptive sports was practically built into his life.
Once his siblings reached the age requirement to join adaptive athletics, Onsum immersed himself in a new world as he began attending his siblings’ practices. The impact changed his life.
After graduating in 1994, Onsum was asked by Robbinsdale program founder and head coach Lloyd Olson to help out with the adaptive program. After five years of coaching nine adaptive teams, Onsum realized this was his calling. Later, as the coach at Robbinsdale adaptive program in 2000, Onsum decided to go back to school to become an adaptive physical education teacher.
Onsum has been involved in adaptive sports for 28 years and currently serves as the Executive Secretary of the MAAA. He is starting to step away from coaching in order to expand the awareness and growth of adaptive athletics to high school programs who do not have money allocated toward it.
“There still should be way more opportunities. I look at just right here around the Twin Cities, how many school districts still do not have adaptive athletics programming for all their students with disabilities, and it’s kind of discouraging,” Onsum said. “My role with the Minnesota Adaptive Athletics Association is to work with our coaches and our communities to try and continue to grow so hopefully, we’ll kind of see an upward trend and participation as we move forward.”
The MAAA represents students with any form of limitations — ranging from cognitive to physical impairments — to participate in four sports at a high school varsity level.
In the fall, Camp slipped on her tennis shoes for preparation for her adaptive soccer game. When Minnesota meets winter, Peterson and Ashton passed a hockey puck back and fourth to one another in a high school gym during adaptive hockey games. Maggie Allen grabbed hold of a bowling ball and carefully slid it down the bowling lane, knocking over a few pins during an adaptive bowling game–which has recently been incorporated in a virtual setting to increase its reach to students.
As soon as tulips were in full bloom and the snow melted amid rays of incoming sun, Greta Klinga slipped on her tennis shoes and ran from base to base at her adaptive softball games. Once, in a game against Chanhassen, she beat up her hands barreling down on first base after getting run over by a player much bigger than her, still getting the out.
Moments like this serve as a reminder to Klinga that the abilities she once doubted of herself, are no longer holding her back.
“Don’t ever doubt anyone’s abilities even though they’re adaptive. Yes we may have impairments physically or cognitively, but that doesn’t mean that it will stop us from the sports that we love doing”
Klinga remembers the day her parents walked into her bedroom while she was laying in her bed and told her there was an opportunity for her to get involved in high school athletics. Being a “daredevil” Greta said, “why not? let’s do it.”
With the social outlet and community that adaptive softball, bowling, soccer and floor hockey offered her, Klinga is now a second-year student in the BUILD program, where she goes to class with many other students who also played adaptive sports, even ones she considered her rival, Peterson. At Bethel, Greta is a tour guide for other students interested in the BUILD program, she is in the school choir and was the softball team’s manager last season. Something she said she will never forget.
“High school me would be very proud of me,” Klinga said, fighting back tears.
What sets the MAAA apart from other inclusive athletic associations like Special Olympics is it gives students the invitation to participate in varsity-level high school athletics and sport their own school colors and team name.
“[The MAAA] is seen on the same footing as football and basketball and everything else in high school. So, [the MAAA] provides a unique opportunity that our kids aren’t getting anywhere else,” Onsum said.
The first step students can take to get plugged into adaptive athletics lies in identifying if their local high school has a program that accommodates and aligns with their physical or cognitive abilities. There are two specific adaptive athletic programs spearheaded by the MAAA, the physical impairment program and the cognitive impairment program.
Onsum says his coaching style is rooted in earning his athlete’s’ trust, which can take up to three or four years. After breaking down his athletes’ skills to the most rudimentary level, he finds a way for him and the athlete to work together to rebuild their skills and find whatever way it is that works best for them.
“I can’t have a blanket approach to anything when I’m dealing with sports skills or gross motor skills with these kids. It has to be on a case-by-case basis with each individual skill,” Onsum said.
“It’s life-changing to the level that they would be entirely different people without these opportunities.” — Marcus Onsum, Executive Secretary of Minnesota Adaptive Association
He then sets goals with each athlete to find their own level of success. He wants their experience as high school athletes to be a genuine one. There will be fun and goofing around, but only after business is taken care of.
“I take this seriously. I want them to think of this as their big time. Just like anybody on the high school basketball team or football team, they take themselves and their seasons seriously.”
From coaching a floor hockey team to the state championship in his first full season as a head coach to watching his athletes grow in confidence and form lifelong friendships, Onsum has seen firsthand how adaptive athletics can truly transform the lives of physically and cognitively impaired students.
“It’s life-changing to the level that they would be entirely different people without these opportunities,” Onsum said.
A line of students in Bethel University’s BUILD program groups gather together in the lobby of Flaherty’s Bowling Alley for its final bowling night of the school year. Students surround the check-in table, slipping on their bowling shoes and inspecting the colorful bowling balls around them.
“I would encourage them to be positive and that there are options out there. If your school doesn’t have it, go ask another school. I would encourage them to at least try it.” — Mia Camp, student in BUILD program
The group finds its respective bowling lanes and completes the hunt in finding the perfect bowling ball for the evening. As pizzas and pitchers of pop are brought to the tables, students twirl around at their tables. The sound of bowling balls sliding down the lanes resounds in the bowling alley, but the sounds of students engaging in conversation and cheering for one another soon follows.
It’s Camp’s turn. She slides her fingers into a hot pink bowling ball and gets in position. Swinging her left leg behind her right, she aims for the slew of bowling pins at the end of the lane.
“Let’s go. Good job,” other students and mentors in BUILD responded. Camp returns to her seat, smiles, takes a bite of her chicken tenders and cheers on the next teammate in line. She wants everyone to have their opportunity to shine.
“I would encourage them to be positive and that there are options out there. If your school doesn’t have it, go ask another school. I would encourage them to at least try it,” Camp said.
While some students achieve strikes, others send their bowling ball straight into the gutters. Regardless, every skill level is seen and celebrated.
About Marcus Onsum in Adaptive Athletics (according to Robbinsdale athletics)
Onsum’s experiences and achievements in adaptive athletics continue to grow and evolve over the years.
- Robbinsdale high school adaptive athletics coaching staff since 1995
- Served as student manager, assistance coach and co-coach until being names head coach in January 2001
- Licensed adapted physical education teacher
- Named the 2001–2002 and 2008–2009 Adapted Athletics Coach of the Year in the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association
- June 2015, named as a finalist for the 2015 National Coach of the Year Award
- Serves as president of the Minnesota Adapted Coaches Association
- Vice president of the Minnesota Association for Adapted Athletics
- Currently the Executive Secretary of the MAAA
Breaking down the different adaptive sports (according to Minnesota Adaptive Athletics Association
The MAAA represents students with any form of limitations — ranging from cognitive to physical impairments — to participate in four sports at a high school varsity level.
- Adapted soccer (Fall): Minnesota Adaptive Athletics’ (MAAA) offers two different types of adaptive soccer teams, one for players with cognitive impairments (C.I.) and one for players with physical impairments (P.I.). There are nine (P.I.) soccer teams and 20 (C.I.) teams in Minnesota.
- Adapted bowling (Winter): Minnesota Adaptive Athletics’ (MAAA) offers three different types of adaptive bowling teams: one for players with cognitive impairments (C.I.), one for players with physical impairments (P.I.) and one for players with autism spectrum disorders.
- Adapted floor hockey (Winter): Minnesota Adaptive Athletics’ (MAAA) offers two different types of adaptive soccer teams, one for players with cognitive impairments (C.I.) and one for players with physical impairments (P.I.). There are currently 10 (P.I.) soccer teams and 22 (C.I.) teams in Minnesota.
- Adapted softball (Spring): Minnesota Adaptive Athletics’ (MAAA) offers two different types of adaptive soccer teams, one for players with cognitive impairments (C.I.) and one for players with physical impairments (P.I.). There are currently 11 (P.I.) soccer teams and 17 (C.I.) teams in Minnesota.
The history of adaptive athletics
Here are all the memorable milestones of the long awaited implementation of adaptive sports in the MSHL
- Find timeline info here
