WASHINGTON — It wasn’t just another ribbon cutting ceremony in Montgomery County. Rather, this was about answering a community’s call to build a place where athletes with special needs can play sports safely.
Pam Yerg, director of Montgomery County Special Olympics, she said she successfully fought to transform a dilapidated outdoor hockey rink on the property of the Potomac Community Recreation Center in Potomac into a new multipurpose outdoor adaptive sports court with a flat, smooth, stable and safe surface for athletes with disabilities, and balance and vision issues.
The court was dedicated Sunday amid a number of community leaders and others who had worked to make it all happen.
County recreation director Gabe Albornoz told the attendees Sunday that the disabled community — a population that is rapidly growing — needs to be better served when it comes to recreation and leisure.
“Adaptive sports programs help individuals gain confidence, have fun and make an impact on their lives,” Albornoz noted.
Yerg said 16-year-old Mary Cassell is the reason she pushed for the new adaptive court. Cassell, who uses a walker, has been playing soccer since she was five years-old in the county’s Special Olympics TOPSoccer youth program, which is headed up by Yerg.
For years, Yerg had been promising Cassell she would have a safe place to play soccer. “All these years, Mary would come out to play soccer struggling down the hills here (Potomac Community Recreation Center), and struggling through the rocks and the grass and the mud,” Yerg told WTOP.
“We have several athletes in the TOPSoccer program who use crutches or a wheel-chair or a walker, but she never gave up, and participated in all of the games,” she added. Finally, Yerg was able to deliver on her promise.
“It’s been a long time in coming,” she said, adding that the new facility would be open to thousands of more athletes who have special challenges.
In addition, senior citizens with mobility and balance issues could use it to get in their morning walk, or even the senior Tai Chi classes now being held at the recreation center in the mornings.
Yerg has already reached out to Wounded Warriors and Disabled Sports USA, a Paralympics group to offer access. “There’s a million uses for it and we’re really happy to have this adaptive surface.”
