By Austin Turner — Content Editor
About a 25-minute drive from Hartford in Northern Connecticut lies Avon Old Farms, an all-male boarding high school with a population of about 406 students.
Despite a small student body, the school has managed to become an athletic powerhouse. Avon Old Farms has produced star athletes, such as hockey players Nick Bonino and Jonathan Quick, and World Series champion George Springer of the Houston Astros.
Every fall, the school’s basketball program hosts the Farmington Valley Special Olympics to participate in basketball practices. There are six different groups of athletes that participate, and they compete with each other on the weekends and in tournaments.
According to Benjamin Schloat, Avon Old Farms’ Director of Community Service, the athletes that participate are “adult athletes who range in ability of skills and abilities and disabilities.”
One of these players was Isaiah Nichols, a current guard for San Jose State’s men’s basketball team.
The junior played for Avon Old Farms as a post-graduate student in the 2015-16 season and became a star, being named to the first-team All-New England Class A squad and receiving Founder’s League co-MVP honors.
Nichols had a reputation for being a leader on the team. Avon Old Farms head basketball coach Tim Rollins was confident every time he stepped onto the court.
“He was already very knowledgeable and could see things on the floor,” Rollins said. “He could be like a coach on the floor and make changes on the fly. He held everybody accountable, including himself. He showed up early and stayed late to work with the younger players.”
Even as the star player of a big-time prep-school basketball program, Nichols instantly wanted to be involved with the special Olympics program.
“Isaiah was walking through the gym one night, saw what was going on and said ‘let me grab my shoes,’” Schloat said. “He was able to help them improve their game and was all around very involved in practices, and afterward would sit around with them and hang out.”
Every week when the special Olympics program visited the team, Nichols worked with the athletes.
“It became a habit type thing” Nichols said. “I’m blessed to play the game, so why not help others?”
To Nichols, helping the athletes was a privilege. The reward in the work he was doing was in the reactions of the athletes themselves.
“I love the fact that my personality built their self-esteem,” Nichols said. “If they did something correct, I would blow that up.”
Nichols didn’t worry about the basketball side of things while working with the athletes. He knew that they didn’t treat the game with as much passion and intensity as he did.
Rather than attempting to coach the players, he took more of an observer role, like a parent watching their child play little league.
“They didn’t understand how to play,” Nichols said. “So it was more like watching them than coaching them.”
Nichols created many bonds while working with the special Olympics athletes. The 6-foot-5 point guard’s face lit up as he told a story of a friend he made that didn’t even have any interest in basketball at all.
“His name was Robert and he was really to himself, and he loved dancing,” he said. “He never got into the whole basketball thing but he loved dancing so we would have a dance-off competition to the side. It was never about basketball to him. I’ll never forget that.”
While the program is framed by a basketball court and led by big-time players, it is bigger than the game itself.
Moments like the dance-off with Robert remind the players that, though they may have a teaching role in the program, they are the ones that are learning the important lessons. The special Olympic athletes are the ones doing the teaching.
“I felt humbled and motivated,” Nichols said. “They were having a blast and they were having the time of their lives. They weren’t worrying about what [disabilities] they had or what each other had.”
As a sociology major, Nichols would like to give back after his playing days at SJSU are over.
“I’d love to work with kids and help them” he said. “You know, the mind is a powerful thing and I feel like I could motivate kids in a certain way and get to them.”
Nichols added how he’d like to get into coaching someday as a way to give back and pass along his knowledge of the game he loves so dearly.
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