We had an awesome first day serving with Athens Inclusive Recreation & Sports (AIRS). We started the morning by meeting Kim and Roger Keeney as well as John, who are three of the administrators of the organization. Roger shared with us the philosophy of AIRS, which is inclusivity. He believes that to be truly inclusive, it’s important to train the athlete individually in their own sport so that they can be successful. Kim also stressed that to be successful in these sports we need to be as competitive as possible. Thankfully for our group, that won’t be a problem. After meeting with AIRS, we used our free time to play a 6-on-6 basketball game at a local court. It was a matchup of epic proportions. On one team: Lindsey, Peter, Devan, Claire, Manoj and Garrett (the oldies). On the other: Megan, Maddie, Sarah, Morgan, Caymen and Adam (the babies). Within the first two minutes, sweat was pouring down our backs. A hunger was in our eyes. Smack talk, screams and grunts echoed across the court. Unfortunately for the Babies however, the game was over before it even began and the oldies won 11-2.
For as much smack as we talked, we had no idea what to expect when we went back to AIRS for the afternoon. When we walked into the gym, 11 wheelchairs greeted us and we met our Coach for the week. She started off practice by having us take two laps around the court, dribbling through and around chairs with one hand at a time and then we finished up with a suicide. The best part of practice was the scrimmage game. We found out very quickly that wheelchair basketball is HARD (in fact we’re sore as we right this, oops). We have a game this Friday at 6:30, so hopefully our strategy helps us when we take on the Rollin Thunder team…at this point they’re probably going to kick our butts!
We ended the day with an amazing meal of chicken, asparagus and rice cooked by Adam, Manoj and Peter then some Baskin Robbins ice cream. It was a great first day here in Athens and we can’t wait to serve more tomorrow!
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