A 6-year-old boy who looks most Center Grove football players straight in the waist remains focused working his way around a small circle of high school athletes.
One-by-one, he pushes each player to the ground. Some quickly return to their feet. Other players prefer to lie still to exaggerate the impact of the two-handed shove just received.
Earlier this week, 35 children with disabilities from Easterseals Crossroads CampAbility in Indianapolis spent several hours at the Trojans home field for the seventh annual Trojan Field Day.
CampAbility campers range in age from 4-17. Among the traditions at Trojan Field Day are sprints, tire flips, tackling, high-fives, fist-bumps and becoming soaked with water.
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“This is not a football camp at all. This is a fun field day more than anything,” said Trojans football coach Eric Moore, whose players wore home red jerseys while bonding with campers. “My freshmen through seniors get to be a part of it, and then next year three-quarters of my team already knows what to do.”
Upon arriving, each camper is escorted into the team’s locker room by one or more football players. Some are immediately taken aback by the "Links of Success," which is the large chain on the wall mentioning the 15 components that go into making the program one of the elite in Indiana.
Turning the corner, campers see the sign asking, "Who likes losing the worst?" Some campers touch the chain, or the sign, or both, after seeing players do it.
Each camper is then led to a locker with his or her first name near the top.
Local sponsorship makes it possible for each camper to take home a gift bag. Inside is a white Center Grove away football jersey complete with his or her last name on the back in red lettering, a water bottle and a football-shaped squeeze ball.
Then it’s back outside as each camper gets a chance to run onto the field after his or her name and jersey number are called by the public address announcer.
The rest of the time is spent doing whatever the campers want to do with their new friends.
"The kids are always in charge. One-hundred percent. If they don’t want to do something, you’re not doing it,” senior offensive lineman Bryce Murphy said while taking part in his fourth Trojan Field Day.
"The best thing about CampAbility, to me, is getting everyone on the team together, finding some kids who usually wouldn’t have as much fun in their own life or at different camps like they would here. It’s about helping them have a good day.”
Lori Culp Bolin, organizer of Trojan Field Day since it started in 2013, said interest from campers and their families grows every year. This translates into more helpers needed behind the scenes in order to prepare breakfast and lunch for campers, market the event, etc.
She credits Moore for making the event not only possible, but memorable for all involved.
“From someone who has been here all seven years, I have the privilege of observing. Coach Moore creates an environment here where everything is possible. There is nothing these young people that are visiting as campers or his own players feel is impossible on this day," Culp Bolin said. "No matter what your ability is, there’s a spirit of ‘Yes, you can’ and ‘Yes, I can’.”
At the north end of Center Grove’s football field, a camper tests his agility by running around orange cones. Near midfield, a camper is running with three football players doing their best to follow his path.
His direction will be their direction.
On a field in which so many triumphs have been recorded by Trojans football, perhaps none are more important than Center Grove hosting CampAbility campers for a few hours every June.
“Kids feel sorry for themselves for the most ridiculous things. I want them to get to spend a day with kids that will never have the opportunity to move around and be like them,” Moore said. “I want them to find out how hard it is. How emotionally difficult it is. How physically difficult it is and how responsible you have to be.
“I love it because my biggest, strongest guys, after it’s all over, will tell me this was the toughest thing they did.”
Not to mention one of the best.
