DeKALB — NIU football players and local community members gathered Tuesday morning at Huskie Stadium’s Brigham Field for a common purpose: the Field of Dreams.
Not to be mistaken for the 1989 sports film starring Kevin Costner, the Field of Dreams is an event hosted by the Beautiful Lives Project. Over 100 children and adults with disabilities from cities like Chicago, Rockford and Sycamore rotated between six stations manned by NIU football players. Participants were able to throw footballs into targets, catch passes, run through bag drills and more.
“My student, he really loved the stepping up and over the little foam platforms. He liked that,” said Sara Jack, a teacher of the visually impaired at Rockford Public Schools. “And then we had a lot of kids that liked the tackling drills.”
Founded by New York-based entrepreneur Anthony Iacovone and blind sports broadcaster Bryce Weiler in May 2017, the Beautiful Lives Project creates custom events to promote inclusion for those with physical or mental disabilities.
This year’s clinic was the second collaboration between NIU football and the Beautiful Lives Project. They held their first event in 2019 during head coach Thomas Hammock’s first season with the Huskies. Since then, the project has built connections with other Division I schools like Boston College, Eastern Illinois University and Long Island University.
According to Michael Gudino, a community membership advocate for the Beautiful Lives Project, Tuesday’s event also welcomed 106 attendees – more than triple the 29 who came out for the inaugural event six years ago.
“It just means that the message is spreading – the message that everybody’s welcome, the message that everybody can do it,” Gudino said. “It doesn’t matter what disability you may have. It doesn’t matter age range. We welcome everybody.”
Gudino, who has worked with the project since 2017, said those who partake in their events usually come away with an enhanced outlook.
“When they leave, they say ‘thank you. I’m so excited I did this. I learned teamwork. I met new friends,’” Gudino said. “They learned how to socialize, and they learned something new about themselves, that they can do it.”
While the participants leave with a new experience, events like the Field of Dreams are memorable in their own way for the players who volunteer.
“There’s a part where our players can easily forget sometimes how cool it is to be a Division I football player and be an athlete – they’re living their dream,” said Dan Wolfe, assistant athletic director for football operations. “When you’re out here working every day and you’re waking up at 5 o’clock to come in for a six o’clock workout every day, the grind is real, and you kind of lose touch with that sometimes.”
NIU football players are required to complete 10 hours of community service each year, though Wolfe noted the program’s community involvement is about more than just meeting a quota.
“We’re just always looking for new opportunities to do things in the community,” Wolfe said. “It’s not just about collecting the hours. It’s about actually helping these guys get good experiences that can help them become better humans.”
Wolfe added that the team is open to hosting more events with the Beautiful Lives Project in the future.
“Whenever they want to do it going forward, they’ve just got to let us know and we’ll hook it up, we’ll set it up, we’ll run it for them,” Wolfe said.
