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28 | August 16, 2018 | The wilmette beacon SPORTS wilmettebeacon.com Loyola girls lax, alum fighting for good cause Michael Wojtychiw Sports Editor Ask most people what makes being a member of the Loyola Academy community a great one and the majority will have a similar answer: family. Whether it be with returning alumni, family, friends or the athletes following the school’s motto of being “Men and Women for Others,” there’s something that stands out about the school. That was none more evident this spring when the Loyola girls lacrosse team embraced the presence of Ryan O’Connor, 3-yearold son of Loyola alumna, and a lacrosse All-American, Elizabeth O’Connor and her husband Ben. Ryan suffers from Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects the nervous system. The syndrome affects the fine motor skills and children with Angelman Syndrome typically have problems with movement and balance, verbal communication skills and delayed development, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The Ramblers girls lacrosse team welcomed Ryan and the O’Connor’s to multiple games this season and denoted themselves as “Team Ryan,” Loyola coach John Dwyer said. “We can’t have him around our team enough. He’s such an uplifting kid. “I think probably no individual has done more for us over the years than Elizabeth. And while at first, you’re heartbroken for them, it’s hard to be heartbroken around them when you’re with them because they’re so positive about it. And they will give this kid the best life that he could ever have.” Typically, the girls lacrosse team decides to fundraise for a different charity every season and this year, after a suggestion from Lynn Gorman, of Loyola’s Admissions Office, the team chose the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics (FAST). The donation would be made in Ryan’s name, the O’Connor’s was flattered and touched. After meeting with the team and members of the Loyola girls lacrosse board, the group decided to have a bake sale at the school, selling baked goods for a dollar. The team raised $1,050 from the bake sale alone, the team donated $7,000 to FAST in total after matched donations and other fundraising efforts. Ryan’s Story At just 18 months old Ryan was diagnosed with the rare genetic disorder, years ahead of the typical 3-7 year-old age range. Since the team had spent so much time around Ryan, they were curious. The O’Connor’s, Highland Park residents, sat down with the girls during a team dinner this season to explain Ryan’s disorder in full. “Most people are very interested and curious, and it’s eye opening for them to learn about Angelman Syndrome and I think that’s been what’s been most amazing about the lacrosse team,” Elizabeth O’Connor said. “When we presented to them at their team dinner, they all were so compassionate and interested, genuinely interested in what Angelman The Loyola girls lacrosse team poses with the O’Connor family after one of its games during the 2018 season. Photo submitted Syndrome is and how it affects Ryan.” That meant a lot to Elizabeth O’Connor and her husband. For the first time parents, being told that there was something different about their first-born child, that he won’t be like the rest of his peers, was difficult information to process. “It was devastating,” Elizabeth O’Connor said. “The neurologist said, ‘He’ll never walk. He’ll never talk, and he’ll never live an independent life.’ To hear that your first child, as a first-time parent, was devastating. I mean just complete shock. Slowly but surely you see him progress, you see him do the things they say he’d never do. And you see that the only limitations he has are the ones that people place on him.” To help cope with the disorder, Ryan attends therapy Monday-Friday, and does a combination of physical, speech and different forms of occupational therapy. One of which is hippotherapy, where he works with an occupational therapist on a horse. In total, Ryan has six-to-eight therapy sessions a week and now has started school which provides extra help as well. Ryan in non-verbal, but technological advancements have made it easier for him to communicate with his parents and others. Ryan uses a voice app called Touchchat on the iPad which helps him ask for what he wants. “It’s four blocks on the screen,” Ben said. “So it’s on the screen and it’ll say something, ‘I want ... I feel ...’ something about, ‘Me ...’ And you can choose, ‘I want X kind of food.’ Then a new screen comes up with four options. If not that, he pushes the next option.” “Our speech therapist in particular says, ‘He’s smart. He understands what you’re saying. He’s getting it,’” Elizabeth O’Connor said. “He must be so frustrated because he wants to do something in his brain but he can’t tell his body to do it, or it doesn’t listen properly.” Support means everything The couple realizes how lucky they’ve been to have the support of not only their family and friends, but the Loyola community. “We realize how lucky we are, as difficult as this has been, we’re surrounded by great family and friends,” Elizabeth O’Connor said. “We have the resources and the education to navigate this difficult journey.” “We don’t really know how much of a toll this takes, emotionally, because [Ryan] is fun to be around,” Ben said. “But it still does take a lot out of you and just hearing from people, and people saying, ‘I’m really thinking about you guys.’ “I think anybody who’s got a child with special needs loves hearing that kind of stuff.” The support the family has received from the Loyola community, the girls lacrosse team and even coach Dwyer has made dealing with everything that much easier. “I know that they will certainly face challenges, but there is nobody that is better equipped or better willing to take it on for their child,” Dwyer said. Elizabeth O’Connor is amazed by her son on a daily basis, and provides the family with a good reminder of what they have to be thankful for. “He continues to amaze us with his hard work and his determination,” she said. “He inspires us every day with just the way he approaches life with a big smile on his face.”
wilmettebeacon.com SPORTS the wilmette beacon | August 16, 2018 | 29 Alumni Spotlight Rosenkranz breaks out at MIT Michael Wojtychiw Sports Editor For many athletes, the hope is to improve as they progress in their careers. Given more opportunities, that often becomes the case, as it did with Josh Rosenkranz, a New Trier graduate and current Massachusetts Institute of Technology cross-country and track runner. After not competing in that many races his freshman year, Rosenkranz not only saw action in more races, but saw his results improve as well. “I feel like it’s more with running, just as you get older, and get more lifetime miles, and get stronger, improvement is somewhat expected if you can stay healthy,” he said. “And I did have some injury problems my sophomore year, so my improvement wasn’t great then, but I’ve been pretty healthy for the past 12 months, and I think I feel like I improved a lot over the past year in both cross country and track.” The Glencoe native comes from a family of runners, as his parents have Sports briefs Murlick finishes top 10 at Illinois Open A year after taking second place at the Illinois Open, New Trier graduate Matt Murlick finished in a tie for seventh place shooting eight strokes under par. Local athletes make college commitments Numerous Loyola and New Trier athletes made their decisions on where they plan on playing collegiate athletics this summer. run marathons and his older brother ran cross-country and track at New Trier, but it wasn’t until his freshman year that he really got involved in the two sports. Even though he only started to get serious about running while at New Trier, it was the summer of his sophomore years when he realized he had a chance to run at the collegiate level. “I just remembered there was one workout where I hadn’t run so well my sophomore year of high school, and then one workout over the summer I did leaps and bounds better than I thought I would.” It’d be fair to say the rising senior broke out in his junior cross-country and track seasons, as he won the 10,000 meters at the New England Division III Outdoor Championships in May and was third in the 5,000 meters. This followed a crosscountry season that had him earn USTFCCCA All- Region and NEWMAC All-Conference honors en route to a 16th-place finish at the NCAA Regional and a 47th-place finish at Loyola • Elizabeth Ford, volleyball - University of Pennsylvania • Jake Gonzalez, football - University of Pennsylvania • Jake Novak, baseball - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • Celia Satter, basketball - University of Richmond • Mick Burden, lacrosse - University of Richmond the NCAA Championships. He also finished second at the NEWMAC Championships, all three of which were personal bests. His win in the 10,000 at the outdoor meet is actually a funny story. That race was on Friday night, and both he and a teammate were coming back for the 5,000 meters the next day. The goal was to try and score as many points in the 10K, while minimizing their energy expenditure, so they could recover for the next day. Both runners were running a pretty consistent pace throughout, and staying pretty comfortable, and everyone started falling off the back until it was just Rosenkranz and his teammate. The two ran the last three miles of it together, not really racing each other because it didn’t matter what order they finished in because they would have scored the same amount of points for the team, and they were trying to win the championship as a team. In the last 200 meters of the race, Rosenkranz had been leading, and turned to New Trier • Ciaran Brayboy, basketball - Harvard • Maddie McGregor, girls volleyball - University of Pennsylvania • Kasey Venn, swimming - Michigan State • Henry Scherb, lacrosse - Tufts • Henry Pelinski, baseball - Emory University Sports briefs are compiled by Sports Editor Michael Wojtychiw his teammate, and told him he should go ahead and win because it was his senior year, and he had placed second the year before, so coming in first would be a nice improvement for him. A nice way to cap off his MIT outdoor track career. So his teammate passed him going into the final straightaway, and then five meters before the finish line slammed on the brakes. “I flew by him and crossed the line first, and then he turned to me afterwards, and he’s like, ‘You had led us through the whole second half of the race. I couldn’t just take the win from you.’ “It was definitely one of the stranger races I’ve been in, but I think it really spoke Hoops4Health has been building players since 2010. For all ages and skill levels. Checkout our website for all of our Fall Programs MIT’s Josh Rosenkranz, a New Trier graduate, takes part in a cross-country race during the 2017 crosscountry season. Photo submitted to the focus that everyone on our team has on helping the team, rather than just helping themselves.” The 47th-place finish at Nationals put him seven spots short of being an All- American, something he knows he can achieve. “The change I need to make to get there I think is just going to be training more consistently,” he said. “Because the spring going into last fall, I didn’t run because I had a stress reaction, so I feel like my buildup for cross country was a little bit shortened because I hadn’t run in the spring. “I feel like having gotten 12 months of consistent training leading up to this summer, I think hopefully will make the difference between being just outside of an All-American spot, and getting one of those All-American spots.” Fall Travel AAU For Boys and Girls Grades 2-12 Tryouts Start 8/29. There are NO CUTS Season runs September-October. Fall 3 on 3 League For Boys and Girls Grades K-12 MAKE YOUR OWN TEAM OR JOIN AS AN INDIVIDUAL (FREE AGENT) Free Agent Evaluation 8/28. League runs September-October. Games played on the Weekend. www.hoops4health.com 847-997-6759 support@hoops4health.com
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