(Photo/Whitney Dankworth’17)
When confronted with adversity and struggle, people can choose to harbor a pessimistic outlook and traverse the road to despair to which it leads—or look at even the toughest of circumstances through a positive lens—resolving simply to fight and not allow such adversity to affect us negatively.
On January 23, Mr. Jake Counts, a former wheelchair basketball Paralympian, advocated the latter attitude to upper school student body.
Ian Smith, Counts’ his fellow teammate are school time friends from the Covington area of Kentucky and helped found their exceptional wheelchair basketball program, the “Cincinnati Dragons.”
Counts, a double amputee resulting from an accident when he was in seventh grade, recounted the story of his accident, struggle, and rehabilitation.
Counts talked about his career as a wheelchair basketball player: from a collegiate athlete to a professional and finally to a Paralympian, representing Team USA at the 2008 Beijing games.
Counts stressed the need for our society becoming increasingly aware of the everyday struggles of those with disabilities. He called upon the audience to “be that guy” who lends a hand to someone with a disability.
A select few students and faculty competed in an energetic game of wheelchair basketball, as Counts demonstrated his impressive skills of playing basketball. Senior Brett Bates said, “That was the hardest thing in sports I have ever done.”
To close, Counts encouraged us to endeavor upon removing the stigma that is so often associated with any sort of disability. Harkening to his original prompt, Counts said that it is important that disability is not viewed as an agent of division. Instead, we should look positively on disability, recognizing that what unites us as people is not what a person’s mind or body may be able to do.
Toward the end of the assembly, a marvelous thing occurred. The students were so infatuated with him that they seemed to forget he was in a wheelchair, or an amputee, simply seeing him simply as a man who loves basketball and is passionate about helping those with disabilities.
