November 28, 2012 (HLIWorldWatch.org)
- Student-athlete Eric Dompierre is a state champion football player, winner of
Sports Illustrated’s “Underdogs” contest and an all-around inspirational young
man. And he has Down syndrome.
Eric, who attends Ishpeming
High School in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan and is a kicker for the
school’s varsity football team, wasn’t sure if the state of Michigan would even
allow him to participate in sports this year. Michigan High School Athletic
Association (MHSAA) regulations barred him, and others with disabilities, from
playing athletics after turning nineteen-years-old before September 1.
Students with Down syndrome
and other developmental conditions sometimes require extra years of schooling
in their early years, making them older than their classmates in their senior
year of high school. Currently 26 states do not allow waivers for older
students with disabilities to play sports past an established age requirement
deadline.
Eric and his father, Dean,
fought for two years trying to convince the MHSAA to create a waiver policy
allowing student-athletes with disabilities to play one year past the current
maximum age.
“Michigan’s kids with
disabilities should not have to beg their leaders for relief,” Dean said, adding the MHSAA should change its policy “not because they have to, but
because it’s the right thing to do.”
After an outpouring of
support for Eric, and petitions to overturn the policy from across the nation,
the MHSAA announced in late May the approval of a new age waiver policy:
A two-thirds majority of
votes cast is required to change the MHSAA Constitution. In a vote of schools
conducted this month, 701 of 1,535 MHSAA member senior high and junior
high/middle schools cast legal ballots, and 94 percent approved of the change.
… As a result of that vote, the Association’s age rule, under which a student
who turns 19 prior to September 1 of a school year is ineligible for
interscholastic athletics, may now be waived by the MHSAA Executive Committee.
“It’s a great sense of
relief,” said his father Dean. “I’m proud of the way he (Eric) has handled
himself through this whole thing. He helped not only himself, but he helped out
some other kids from the state. I also feel thankful for all the people who
helped us out in this and made this thing happen.”
But Eric’s story didn’t end there.
His football team, the
Hematites, went on to win the MHSAA Division 7 state football championship last
Friday with a near flawless season record. Eric kicked a number of extra points
and even scored a touchdown during their championship season.
And on Tuesday, Sports
Illustrated announced that Eric and his Hematites were the winners of their “Underdogs”
contest, giving the school a $25,000 grant from Powerade and a trip to New York
City for 10 of the team’s players to attend the magazine’s Sportsman of the
Year event next week. But the Hematites are sticking together, and are trying
to raise money to send the entire team to New York.
Sports Illustrated will pay
for a charter bus for the whole Hematite squad to travel to New York, but the
school needs to raise $3,200 to house and feed the students during the trip.
“The year as a whole has
been quite remarkable,” said Eric’s father Dean. “Sometimes, it’s been remarkable in a negative way,
or a sad way, and other times it’s been remarkable in a good way, but overall,
it’s been quite a ride … We really want to thank everybody, not just in the
U.P. but really all across Michigan and the country who went to bat for us, not
only during our ‘Let ‘em Play‘
campaign, but also during this contest to help us come out on top.”
While studies have found
that around 90 percent of women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down
syndrome choose to have an abortion, stories like Eric’s show just how much of
an inspiration and impact persons with disabilities can have on their families
and their communities. Eric and the Hematites leave Monday for the Big Apple.
Check out this video about Eric:
