One of Merrick Avenue’s most courageous students took a teaching role in his school’s physical education classes, adding a unique twist.
On Nov. 24 and 25, Austin Bird, an eighth-grade student athlete, led hundreds of students through basketball exercises, sprints and warmups with one major qualification: everything must be done in a wheelchair.
Bird’s legs were paralyzed at age 6 due to a severe infection. This did not stop him from pursuing athletic interests. Today he is a highly active athlete, travelling for basketball and swimming programs, with greater ambitions to remove the stigma held towards adaptive sports.
“I feel like there’s never enough kindness for wheelchairs in the world, I will always want to change that,” Bird said. “We talked to the principal, and we were able to make it happen. I’m very happy that this happened and that it’s going so well.”
Bird and his sister Shannon spoke with his school’s principal about a special program that could help students of different physical conditions reach a mutual understanding. During each class, Bird and his sister share their personal stories and how they wound up making this special P.E. class possible.
“I’ve always wanted to spread kindness and wheelchair awareness,” he explained. “I always wanted to become someone who would make more ramps, make the world more accessible… (and) we always thought it’d be a good idea if we can get it into the school so we could start expanding over Merrick and then hopefully the world.”
Bird’s first large-scale teaching experience was nerve-wracking at first, but he quickly got into the groove of guiding his peers through different exercises in the school’s gymnasium.
“I was very nervous at first when it came to leading and telling them where to sit and where to go and what to do,” he said, “but we all had so much fun. And even I was learning things that day too about the kids and about myself. It was awesome.”
The athletic wheelchairs were provided by Austin’s basketball league, Rolling Fury. Rolling Fury is one of Long Island’s junior athletic programs, accepting young people from in and around the metropolitan area and accommodating a wide range of disabilities. The team is affiliated with Nassau County Kings, a sports league for adults in similar circumstances.
Eric Strezenec, a member of the Kings and a friend of Bird’s, has lived in Merrick for 36 years and fiercely advocated for Disability Awareness Day programs in the area. The two connected over the struggles of experiencing great personal tragedies that occurred about the same time as their disability — and how they lived afterwards.
Strezenec competed in the Paralympics in Korea, and nationally competed in basketball, softball, volleyball, and hockey. Even for someone so accomplished, Bird’s journey is an inspiration.
“It’s not easy to be in a wheelchair,” Strezenec said. “He’s a great player — only gets better as time goes on. And to do this in front of your peers is not easy.
“The most important thing is, by him doing this, maybe the next kid who comes to school disabled… sees someone like (Bird), it makes him step up a little bit, which is a good thing — you turn a negative into a positive,” he continued.
Katelyn Dunn, the principal of Merrick Avenue, strongly supported Bird’s plan.
“Austin Bird is really the person who came up with this and said, ‘I want to give kids the opportunity to see what adaptive sports are and have that feel,’” she said. “These kids actually feel the challenges and the skills that are needed to do what he does on an everyday basis. By seeing and feeling those challenges firsthand, the kids have the experience, and they’re really building empathy.”
The two-day event directly connects with one of the school’s most important learning goals: how to connect with others.
“Anytime we can teach kids about empathy… that’s something that we want to do,” she said. “We talk about empathy a lot in middle school and character education, and how we can make our kids better people all around — it’s something that we’ll continue to emphasize.”
To learn more about Rolling Fury and other adaptable sports programs, visit NYRollingFury.org.
