By Scott Brinton
The Calhoun bench was quiet as the Colts took to the court after halftime.
Early in third quarter, Calhoun's Tzvi Lewisohn grabbed a rebound, thundered up the court and slipped under the basket to put in a layup, making the score 30-26. On the Calhoun bench, Ashley Florscher said, "We're catching up. Thank God. It was not pretty."
Lewisohn kept it up, sweeping across the court and hitting a series of layups, and soon the score was tied at 32. Then, with 5:08 remaining in the quarter, he stole a pass and again dropped in a layup to put Calhoun ahead by two.
Jane Chemka, a security guard sitting on the sideline, remarked, "Tzvi's been working on his layup, I guess."
Calhoun never looked back after that, winning 40-36. It was a hard-fought victory, however. Seaford came on strong in the fourth quarter. With 2:03 remaining in the game, Calhoun's head custodian, Lenny Heide, said, "It's a nail-biter. It's close." With 1:26 left, the Blue Jays' big man, Mike Finn, dropped back and took a shot from outside the three-point arc, which fell just short of its mark.
When the game ended, the Calhoun bench emptied, and players smiled widely and jumped up and down as the crowd of several dozen parents in the bleachers applauded. The come-from-behind victory was a sweet end to an undefeated season for the Colts.
You might never have known that the game was played entirely by special education students. It was all so mainstream, and that is precisely how Calhoun's special education chairman, John Felicciardi, intended it to be.
In January, Felicciardi had an idea to form a countywide basketball league for special ed. students, played after school like any other varsity sport. He called Saul Lerner, Bellmore-Merrick's athletic director, to ask about how he could set up such a league. Lerner, a former professional basketball player in Israel, agreed to fund uniforms for Central District participants, and even volunteered to referee games.
Felicciardi sent out feelers to other high schools. Three responded: Oceanside, Garden City and Seaford. Nassau County's first special ed. basketball league was born. In recent months, each team played every other team twice, including home and away games.
"It's about creating as much normalcy as possible for kids with special needs," Felicciardi said. "That was the premise from the beginning. It's a nice thing that they can put on a Calhoun jersey and compete for the school. Many of our kids don't look at themselves as disabled. That's what we want."
A number of the players have Down syndrome or autism, and there are other disabilities as well. At Calhoun they attend self-contained classrooms, so to one degree or another, they understand they are outside the mainstream. But given a chance to compete in sports, Felicciardi said, "They see they're fully accepted."
For games, Lerner dressed in a referee's uniform, with a black-and-white striped jersey and black shorts. After the Calhoun-Seaford matchup, he said, "They have people cheering for them in the stands. It's their day. They get to feel success that they otherwise don't get to feel."
Lerner, a special education teacher in the New York City school system for 16 years before he became Bellmore-Merrick's athletic director, said, "In the city, we were always last. We had the worst of everything." So, Lerner said, he works to ensure that special ed. students are treated as well as their mainstream peers.
Calhoun special ed. teachers Joseph Bianca, Emily Paluseo and Lauren Miele volunteered to coach the basketball squad. At first, many of the players had little concept of basketball or even team play, said Bianca, who coaches Calhoun's football squad in the fall. "At first they would run away from the ball," he said. With a great deal of instruction, the players caught on, however.
"Parents are coming to us, saying, 'I can't believe the difference,'" Bianca said.
Jeff Lewisohn attended the Calhoun-Seaford game and reveled Tzvi, his son, helped put the Colts ahead in the third quarter. "I'm glad this is the game I came to watch," said Lewisohn, who described his son as a kind young man who has trouble processing large chunks of information. "Sometimes special education is looked at a certain way. For me, the outcome isn't as important as the process. Whether they won or lost, I would be happy. [Basketball] has given him confidence."
Shawn Asman, 16, a Calhoun junior and a member of the squad, said, "We're a good team. We work together as a team ... If I wanted to make it to the pros, I could."
Felicciardi is considering starting a special ed. softball league this spring.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
