{"id":77504,"date":"2024-08-06T14:23:41","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T20:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=77504"},"modified":"2025-03-03T13:07:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T20:07:57","slug":"athletes-with-physical-intellectual-disabilities-showcase-talents-on-rapids-unified-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/athletes-with-physical-intellectual-disabilities-showcase-talents-on-rapids-unified-team\/","title":{"rendered":"They’re all soccer pros. Athletes with physical, intellectual disabilities showcase talents on Rapids Unified Team."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Colton
Colton Rice, a Rapids Unified athlete, weighs his options. Photo by Bart Young, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s a sunny 99 degrees on a Tuesday afternoon in late July. An official Colorado Rapids team is warming up on field 22 of the Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods Park soccer complex. The names on the back of their burgundy jerseys \u2014 Kratzer, Raines, Obernesser, Shumake, and Hirschhorn, among them \u2014will be less familiar to Colorado soccer fans than the ones of the guys who practiced on the neighboring field that morning: Bassett, Navarro, Rosenberry, Steffen, Vines, and so on.<\/p>\n

But on the front of both jerseys resides the UCHealth logo. A jersey sponsorship, you see, doesn\u2019t stop where the Major League Soccer or MLS team ends.<\/p>\n

The occasion is a “friendly,” or a practice match. The team in question is the Rapids Unified Team<\/a>, and the opponent consists of two dozen Colorado Rapids employees \u2014 responsible for ticket sales, video production, community relations, fan engagement, graphic design, the website, and more. Many wear the New Day Kit<\/a>, designed to boost mental-health awareness in the state in partnership with UCHealth.<\/p>\n

\"Rapids
Rapids Unified coach Molly Underly brings the team together before the match. Photo by Bart Young, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Caitlin Kinser, the Rapids\u2019 senior director of Community Impact and Events, has donned a referee\u2019s zebra shirt for the occasion. She and Sydney Kohne, the similarly zebraed Rapids\u2019 digital content coordinator, will officiate. They will do so barefoot, a testament to the living-room-carpet nature of the natural-grass pitch.<\/p>\n

Kinser clarifies the rules to the Rapids staffers: two 20-minute halves as is practice for the MLS Special Olympics Unified Sports Soccer Exchange Program<\/a>. And no slide tackling, please.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t feel like you need to go easy on them. They\u2019re very athletic,\u201d Kinser adds.<\/p>\n

\"Rapids
Rapids Unified athlete Aiden Ramirez on the dribble. Photo by Bart Young, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Focusing on successes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That becomes clear when the game starts. The Rapids Unified team practices twice a week in Thornton and includes 10 athletes with intellectual disabilities and seven \u201cpartners\u201d who play on club and high school teams.<\/p>\n

As the game proceeds, Molly Underly, a longtime Special Olympics volunteer coach and former University of Indianapolis goalkeeper, explains what Rapids Unified Team is about.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s people with and without disabilities coming together to play soccer,\u201d Underly says. \u201cIt\u2019s about the sport, but it\u2019s also much more than just about sport. It\u2019s about the relationships and the mentoring and those things that we think about outside of soccer \u2014 what it means to be involved and have friends and care. And it\u2019s about people celebrating you for all of your successes, as opposed to focusing on disabilities or areas of weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rapids United season involves a handful of formal games and friendlies like this one. The Rapids Unified Team played Real Salt Lake Unified in Salt Lake City in May, New York Red Bulls Unified at home and then the Colorado Springs Switchbacks away in July, and will head to FC Dallas for a game against that MLS team\u2019s Unified squad on Aug. 31.<\/p>\n

\"Scotty
Scotty Stephens, a Rapids Unified athlete, heads toward goal. Photo by Bart Young, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Losing a leg can\u2019t keep him off the field<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The most visually striking player on the field is one of the Rapids Unified team partners, Jordan Obernesser, 15. He had right-knee pain early in his fall 2022 freshman soccer season at Golden High School. It was bone cancer, and it required the amputation of his right leg above the knee that November. A rotationplasty limb salvage surgery at Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado now lets him walk normally with a prosthetic, but he goes without and uses forearm crutches to play. And play he does \u2013 moves like a cat, and faster than many who enjoy unassisted bipedalism; seeks out spaces like an experienced central midfielder; and makes the right passes.<\/p>\n

\"Rapids
Rapids Unified partner Jordan Obernesser also plays on the Colorado Rapids Amputee Team and was recently added as the youngest member, at age 15, of the U.S. Amputee Soccer Team. Photo by Bart Young, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jordan plays not only for the Rapids Unified Team, but also for the Colorado Rapids Amputee Team<\/a>, and he recently became the youngest member of the U.S. Amputee Soccer Team<\/a>. He\u2019ll be back on the Golden High School boys team this fall, too, he says, before heading to Honduras with the national team in November for the Gold Cup. (For more on Jordan\u2019s remarkable story, check out this video<\/a> the Rapids put together for AppleTV.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is kind of something to play for fun, and, I mean, I really enjoy it,\u201d Jordan says, after subbing off for a breather. \u201cAnd it\u2019s kind of giving back to the Rapids, because they\u2019ve been great through my journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

A shared victory<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The back-and-forth game stands at 0-0 at the break but ignites in the second half. Three well-worked goals by the Rapids staff are countered by a long-range bomb by Rapids Unified partner Reed Wangerin, the ball rolling over the goal line after some close-in chaos and credited to athlete Katie Wagner, and partner Bryan Kratzer\u2019s right-footed shot into the upper corner in the waning seconds of extra time. As Unified Sports rules dictate, there would now be a shootout.<\/p>\n

\"Jordan
Jordan Hirschhorn, a Rapids Unified athlete, heads to the corner flag to celebrate his shootout-winning goal. Photo by Bart Young, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some suspiciously subpar goaltending on the part of the goalkeeper Marc Rodriguez, a Rapids inside sales representative, does influence the proceedings. But in the end, Rapids Unified player Jordan Hirschhorn sends Rodriguez the wrong way and decides the tie. Hirschhorn runs to the corner flag and executes a Christiano Ronaldo-style celebratory leap and finds himself swarmed by players in burgundy and blue.<\/p>\n

After the staff and Rapids Unified players have dispersed from a group photo, Kinser describes the Rapids Unified program, now in its 12th year, as \u201cI think the best thing we do as a club.\u201d The name on the front of those jerseys matters, too, she adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we\u2019re representing the Rapids brand, we\u2019re also representing UCHealth,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re one of the best partners we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a sunny 99 degrees on a Tuesday afternoon in late July. An official Colorado Rapids team is warming up on field 22 of the Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods Park soccer complex. The names on the back of their burgundy jerseys \u2014 Kratzer, Raines, Obernesser, Shumake, and Hirschhorn, among them \u2014will be less familiar to Colorado […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":77530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9183],"class_list":["post-77504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-colorado-rapids"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAthletes with physical, intellectual disabilities showcase talents on Rapids Unified Team - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Rapids Unified team includes 10 athletes with intellectual disabilities and seven \u201cpartners\u201d who play on club and high school teams.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/athletes-with-physical-intellectual-disabilities-showcase-talents-on-rapids-unified-team\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"They're all soccer pros. 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