Bethel Athletics and BUILD Continue Creating a Unique Partnership

The Athletics Department at Bethel University is known for its inclusivity and great support systems within the eighteen sports teams. Each game is filled with roaring fans, and for every loss and win, there is faith seen in the players. 

Bethel’s BUILD Program is young and rising up in the ranks when it comes to being known for its benefits for students with intellectual disabilities. The program numbers have grown since they first started. This two-year program is helping many students with disabilities have a thriving future. 

What do these two very different programs have in common? Everything. Both programs are trying to create spaces for their students to feel valued for their uniqueness. They want the students to feel valued and a part of something. Recently, Bethel Athletics and the BUILD program have created a partnership together. What this means is that many of thestudents in BUILD are working alongside the student-athletes as managers for the sport teams. 

Ryan Anderson started in spring of 2018 and is the supervisor of the BUILD internships. Anderson is closely connected to the BUILD students he is working with. Having the students in BUILD work as managers helps them learn skills that will prepare them for a brighter future. 

Many of the students in BUILD are huge sports fans, standing in the crowd with big smiles and screaming at the top of their lungs. Justin Evilsizer is one of the many students in the BUILD program who are big supporters at Bethel sporting events. He found his passion for sports after attending many hockey games, and athletics department members took notice of his drive. 

Evilsizer is a second year student in BUILD, and because of his love for hockey, this gave him the opportunity to be a manager for the men’s hockey team. Evilsizer like many of the students in BUILD, feel valued by the other students when they are able to be a part of something. For Evilsizer, he feels valued by the student-athletes when folding the teams towels and socks.

Evilsizer says that he is really grateful for his ability to help out on the team, he even mentions that what he loves to do more than anything is skate with them on Thursday’s. That step from fan to manager has given many of the students in BUILD this confidence and feeling of belonging to Bethel. 

The student-athletes, like the students in BUILD, feel valued and confident in their abilities when they are supported by their department and the fans. One student-athlete who saw a transformation in herself is volleyball and softball team member, Allie Fauth. Fauth is a junior education major at Bethel and she also is a mentor for many of the students in the BUILD program.  Fauth learned about the BUILD program from her roommate, but she sought out encouragement from coach Roman Foore, who is a BUILD professor and the associate head softball coach. 

Fauth mentioned that after practices coach Foore encourages the girls to mentor the BUILD students. With this encouragement this led her to want to be a BUILD mentor. The importance of sports is what really bonded Allie with many of the students in BUILD, even when it comes to academics. 

Allie discussed how the moments with the students in BUILD is something that has really affected how she plays and how her mentality changed because of her growth with such encouraging mentees.

“Sophomore year, I played a bad game. I don’t remember if we won or not, but I remember playing poorly. I was so upset with myself and then afterward Justin came up to me with a drawing of him and I. He wrote that I was really cool and it just put things back into perspective,” smiled Fauth.

Students on both sides of athletics and BUILD are creating something that is raw and genuine within their respected programs, but also with each other. The faculty on campus have admired this process as well, like coach Foore.

Coach Foore talks about his time at Bethel with the BUILD program as something he will be “truly grateful for.” It has helped the Bethel sports teams grow in a way that has never been done before. The teams are joining in the experience with an open mind and positive attitudes in hopes to benefit the growth of the students in BUILD, but also for themselves as athletes.

The future is always unknown, but both Athletics and BUILD see the partnership as something that could grow and develop into something more. One thing is for certain, the halls of Bethel are changing, not for Athletics and BUILD, but for everyone.