In a show of friendship, Oak Forest High School athletes take the field for a team manager
By: Donna Vickroy, Daily Southtown
Click here to view the original article. They came as fans ready to cheer on the player who had been manager of their high school’s girls softball team for three years.
But when the teens realized Maddie Crosetto’s rival softball team wasn’t going to show, they did what team players are so very good at— they climbed down from the bleachers and stepped up.
On May 24, 14 students from the Oak Forest High School girls softball and boys basketball teams headed over to handicapped-accessible Challengers Field in Tinley Park to watch Crosetto, who has Down syndrome, play.
The show of support was supposed to be a surprise for the friend who is always cheering for everyone else, OFHS softball coach Caitlin McMahon said.
But when the opposing team didn’t show due a scheduling glitch, the friends formed their own team and took to the field, where they also took a pounding.
“We got shelled,” said Trevor Hausherr, an OFHS basketball player who graduated last month.
The Challengers league team won the game 22-14 that night but “everyone had fun,” McMahon said.
Hausherr said the opportunity to turn the Challengers’ disappointment into victory was just too good to pass up.
“The enjoyment the other team had, oh my god, they just loved beating us,” he said.
In his own post-mortem of the game, player Jack Dukelow, an Oak Forest grad who heads to Marquette University this fall, said, “We just couldn’t hit that day. They were fielding everything and hitting so well. They were so fast around the bases. It was hard to catch up to them.”
Tinley’s Challengers Baseball Program currently has eight teams, made up of players of all ages, said Rich Granata, who is program commissioner with his wife Dawn. The field is located at Bettenhausen Park and can accommodate athletes with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism and other conditions, he said.
The league began in 1993 and has grown from nine players to 118, he said. It draws from Chicago’s southwest side to Joliet. The Bobcats organization helps cover the cost of players uniforms and trophies, Granata said, but the league relies on donations and volunteers, many of whom are high school kids, he said.
In addition to other Challenger teams, players face off against travel teams and sometimes Andrew High School baseball teams.
“But the Challengers always seem to win,” Granata said. “They’re undefeated.”
The goal, said Crosetto’s mom Joni Crosetto, is “to give everyone a chance to play baseball, our national pastime.”
McMahon added, “Maddie’s been at every one of our games, at every practice. We knew we had to come and support her the way she supports us everyday. We didn’t yell as much as she does, though.”
Duty aside, McMahon said, “These guys were there because they’re Maddie’s friends — bottom line.”
Crosetto’s biggest responsibility on the Oak Forest Bengals team, McMahon said, is keeping the group of teenage girls in line. “She can do it better than any coach and teacher I know,” she said.
“My favorite line of hers,” McMahon said, “is ‘Less talking, more walking.’”
Joni Crosetto said the spirit of inclusion “is alive and well in Oak Forest,” something she attributes to the coach’s leadership.
“It’s been a great experience for us too,” Joni Crosetto said. “Everybody has been so kind. Two of the girls would pick Maddie up for practice and games. They were her friends.”
McMahon said that this year’s group of seniors seemed especially selfless. “In all my years of coaching, this has been the hardest group to say goodbye to,” she said.
She said she wasn’t surprised the teens would volunteer to take the field in place of the scheduled rival team that evening.
“It was awesome for me to see these guys get that opportunity to show their support. It was something that I think not a lot of kids or high schoolers would go out of their way to do,” McMahon said. “To see these kids not even bat an eye about going out there to play. It was like watching the Globetrotters out there, they were tossing the ball up in the air and having fun.”
Ethan Balinao, who will be a senior at OFHS this fall, said, “This group knows how to have a good time, how to turn any situation into a good time.”
Nikki Thomas, an Oak Forest grad who heads to University of Illinois in the fall to study special education on a tuition waiver, said, “Honestly, for me, being a good person comes before being a good player. Especially when you’re on a team. It’s important to get along with everyone before you think of yourself and your stats.”
Dukelow said his father has often expressed that same sentiment.
“He said when he remembers people from high school, he remembers first of all their personality. He says that’s what makes the biggest mark on people. How you treat others,” Dukelow said. “I think kindness is always important. Giving it always makes you feel good inside even if people don’t recognize it.”
Even though the Oak Forest athletes lost the game that day, graduate Sandy Fiorczyk, who heads to Arizona State University in the fall, said, “No one’s going to remember your accomplishments but they’ll always remember what kind of person you were.”
When asked who was the star of that pickup game, Maddie Crosetto said, “I would have to say myself.”
And the others wholeheartedly agreed.