University of Cincinnati launches Ohio's first competitive collegiate adaptive sports program

When she was 10 years old, Logan Cover got a glimpse of her future at a wheelchair basketball camp at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

From that moment on, I knew this was the first college I wanted to go to, and I wanted to play basketball for them, Cover said.

The dedication of Cincinnati residents to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewaters wheelchair basketball program was twofold.

The teams are successful, with both the men's and women's wheelchair basketball programs having a history of winning college tournaments and sending athletes (including Covers' former coach) to the Paralympics.

And Cover knew that there were no comparable options locally. The US Paralympic Committee program database shows no competitive adaptive sports options for disabled athletes at any college in Ohio.

This year, however, the University of Cincinnati is changing that with the launch of its adaptive athletics program. Athletes with disabilities can now participate in wheelchair tennis and adaptive athletics for UC.

The logical next step: founding UC Adaptive Athletics

Over the past decade, a number of sports programs for youth with disabilities have emerged in Cincinnati. Covers children's coach Jacob Counts founded the Cincinnati Dragons children's wheelchair basketball team. And the Cincinnati Tennis Foundation created adaptive tennis opportunities for elementary and middle school students.

But after graduation, there were no local colleges for these athletes to compete.

That was another big push, just for all of us to say, let's try to keep some of our talent here, rather than sending them to the University of Michigan, Alabama or Arizona, Counts said.

This spring, a group of UC physicians, athletic trainers and accessibility resource staff started the program. They asked Counts to oversee the brand new wheelchair tennis and adaptive athletics teams as adaptive athletics coordinator.

As we start to grow the adaptive sports scene in Cincinnati overall, this is kind of a logical next step, Counts said.

Now Counts is building the program, practicing wheelchair mobility exercises with his athletes and recruiting next year's classes.

7.3%: The rarity of competitive adaptive college athletics programs

Ohio isn't the only state that lacks options for athletes with disabilities.

Let's just say that a disappointing share of colleges and universities in the United States document the existence and funding of adaptive sports programs, says Yetsa Tuakli-Wosornu, an athlete, physician-scientist at Stanford and sports equality expert.

She and a team of researchers found only 26 NCAA Division I colleges offer competitive opportunities for adaptive athletes.

Tuakli-Wosornu says the opportunity gap exists for two reasons.

If the thought is that they are not going to make us any money, then there is no point in investing in these athletes. That's the first point, Tuakli-Wosornu said. Second, sometimes it just isn't thought about. Part of the unconscious bias in 'ableism' is that you have a blind spot when it comes to the underprivileged group, in this case the adaptive athletes.

Tuakli-Wosornu says the growing popularity of women's sports shows that expanding adaptive athletics could also bring in the dollars. But creating sports opportunities for more people has more benefits than profit. It builds community.

Competition and community

Logan Cover is now a founding member of UC's wheelchair tennis team.

She's back in town after a stint playing wheelchair basketball at her dream school. Being eight and a half hours away from home wasn't for her, so Cover returned to the city where she got her start: Cincinnati.

She first met Coach Counts ten years ago at a meeting for parents and children with spina bifida, a condition that affects the spine. Cover attended her first wheelchair basketball practice with the Cincinnati Dragons shortly after.

I just got excited because it was a sport I could play, Cover said. I liked the community around it.

So when she got a text from her old coach inviting her to join UC's new collegiate team, her answer was a simple yes.

“It really feels great to be able to stay so close to home because sports have been a part of my life for a while, my whole life actually,” she said.

Now she and her fellow UC athletes are looking forward to their first Intercollegiate Tennis Association team championship in the spring. Until then, they focused on the daily work on their forehand shots and made time to laugh during practice.