Zachary Leonard’s mother describes him as a runner who “takes off a lot.”
This summer, the nine-year-old boy became one of the city’s newest soccer players.
Zachary, who is autistic, was part of the Sudbury special needs soccer league, which was launched earlier this year.
“I’ve seen a big change in him alone just in sticking around,” Tamara Gorrie, Zachary’s mother, said. “He takes off now more towards the team, instead of away.”
It may not necessarily be true soccer as most people would see it...
Tamara Gorrie,
mother of a child with autism
She said it’s difficult to keep her son motivated to stick with a group, but as it turned out, soccer was the avenue he needed to capture his interest.
“(Children with autism) tend to not want to socialize, they tend to stick to themselves,” Gorrie said. “(With the soccer) I found a lot of the kids, my son especially, he was just right in there. Seeing other kids do it got him motivated to get in there and do it.”
Jeff McNeil put the wheels in motion this spring to launch the league, which is a division of the Sudburnia Soccer League. After struggling to enrol his eight-year-old daughter, who also has autism, in a soccer league last year, he decided to create a new league specifically for kids who have been diagnosed with any special need or disability.
In its first year, there were roughly 40 kids participating.
“There were all sorts of kids — physically, mentally and communications challenged,” McNeil said. “And the parents really rallied. We had two coaches per team, and all the parents worked behind the scenes as well. There were probably more parents involved than kids.”
While he deemed this year a success, McNeil said he hopes the league will attract more interest next year.
“The biggest thing we want to improve on is just getting more kids. We’d like to get more interest from the physically challenged. They accounted for about 30 per cent of the players. We know they’re out there. They probably just didn’t know about (the league).”
McNeil is also aiming to spread the idea to other cities.
“The Ontario Soccer Association told us that only three other cities are doing this kind of thing,” he said. “Every kid has a right to play.”
As for Gorrie, she said she’ll definitely be enrolling Zachary in the league again next year.
“Whether or not they actually played wasn’t the point, it was coming out,” she said. “If they were into playing, they played. If they weren’t, well, they basically joined in when they were ready.
“It may not necessarily be true soccer as most people would see it, but it’s a big socializing thing for these kids to come out and just get together.”
For more information about the league, contact McNeil at [email protected].
