Niwot unified basketball wraps up successful second season

The end of a season can bring about many emotions, but it was all smiles on Feb. 25 as the Niwot High School unified basketball team wrapped its final pair of games.

Junior Natalie Carrillo was one of 11 NHS students with intellectual disabilities who hooped it up this winter, and she was simply grateful for the experience.

"It's like a family," Carrillo said following Niwot's season finale, a 72-70 loss to Mead High School in a tournament hosted by Skyline High School. "Everyone's sweet and nice but when it comes to games, we're kind of ruthless."

Niwot's competitive nature had the Cougars dropping only two games all season, although the second-year program's goals go far beyond wins and losses. For coach Dawn Zwisler, her hope is that unified sports can help build a more inclusive community within the school setting.

This past season, 15 students without disabilities volunteered as "partners" for Niwot's unified basketball team. Those students, most of them athletes themselves, helped teach the sport and were even on-court during games. Zwisler believes that it's just as important for non-special needs students to become comfortable alongside disabled students.

"It's not just on the court or when they're playing sports that they interact with our kids with disabilities, but in the school, so this is gaining footing," Zwisler said. "It's great and then they go out there and they can be in the school community with these kids. We're taking that step forward, and hopefully in the next few years, it'll be full inclusion and these kids will be seen as their peers."

NHS senior partner Veer Gandhakwala noticed that as the season progressed, Zwisler's hope of bringing students from all backgrounds together became a reality.

"You feel so attached to everyone in your grade and school when you're doing it," said Gandhakwala, who also helped with unified bowling. "It also leads into students showing up to our home games and showing support for kids that (they) usually wouldn't even know who they are. It helps them interact in the hallways and it's just a great community we've built."

At the same time, watching special needs students compete against other schools in a manner that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to was an added bonus.

"We had a great bunch of kids," Zwisler said. "Our athletes were super excited just to be able to play."