Chris Whitfield: Big part of the team

“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”

— Francis of Assisi

A lot of times in the world of high school athletics, we get caught up in recruiting profiles, individual stars with statistics that set people to thinking of the next level and that one athlete with lots of stars beside his name on some website.

However, the true value of high school athletics is not in the opportunity to move on and play at the next level, and it is hardly ever about publicity. Indeed, according to the NCAA, only 5.7 percent of all high school football players will ever compete at the collegiate level, and that includes everything from Division III to the Bowl Championship Series. The numbers are slightly better in baseball with 6.1 percent making the jump from high school to college. Basketball for boys and girls is even worse, hovering around 3.1 percent.

No, the true value of high school sports comes in the lessons learned from hard work, team building, leadership skills and blending diversity together for a common cause.

No where is that blending of diversity more on display in our area than on the swim team roster at Northwest Whitfield.

Amel Pehlivanovic is a 17-year-old sophomore at Northwest of Bosnian descent. He is also a big part of the Bruins’ swim team, but it is doubtful that you will ever read his name in the paper because he won an event for his school. Pehlivanovic has Down Syndrome, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t part of the team.

“It is important that I get treated the same,” Pehlivanovic said. “I am just like everybody — my family and my friends. I just want to get better.”

Northwest swim coach Marta Hannah saw potential when she first approached Pahlivanovic.

“He was doing P.E. with me, and I looked and I thought to myself, he is very flexible,” she said. “I approached him and said, ‘Amel, you want to be on the swim team?’ He said, ‘Yeah, and by the way I swim really good.’ That’s how it started.”

Most of the swimmers on the Northwest team have been swimming competitively for some time, and when Pehlivanovic arrived for practice, to say the least it was a curveball.

“When Amel first came out and we saw him on the team, everybody was a little on the shocked side,” senior Natalie Williams said. “Whenever you think of special education athletics, you think of Special Olympics. You don’t think about varsity athletics. But Amel brings so much unity to our team. When it comes to other things, we are all so different, but when it comes to Amel, we all join together and cheer him on. We are all very proud to have him on our team.”

After the initial shock wore off, though, the members of the team embraced him.

“Everyone was kind of surprised at the beginning just because we weren’t used to it,” Paige Holloway said. “But he has always been part of the team, completely. We all give him the same support we give all the other swimmers on the team. He has gotten a lot better and more social since he joined the swim team.”

Inclusion is a big buzzword in education these days when it comes to special education and the students in the program. Inclusion on the team for Pehlivanovic means doing all of the same drills and going through the same weight training.

“It is important to treat everyone the same, and I am very tough on him,” Hannah said. “He has to run like everyone else and do the weight training and jumping rope isn’t easy for him, but he never gives up. My goal right now, is to help him with his other strokes. He would be very good on the butterfly, and we are working on his flip turns.”

His work in the water is also paying big dividends for his health. Hannah said that at his last check-up, he had grown more than an inch after doctors had told him that he wouldn’t grow anymore. His lungs have gotten stronger through his training, and overall he is much healthier. But perhaps the biggest benefit has been the social side of life. After a period of adjustment for both sides, Pehlivanovic is one of the guys, pulling the same pranks and enjoying his time with his teammates.

“They are all good,” he said of his teammates. “They cheer for me.”

His teammates can tell the difference as well.

“He was a little bit shy when he first came out and if anyone said anything to him, he would just shy away,” Williams said. “Then Amel finally got to where he will joke around with the rest of the team like we do, and he takes criticism very well and adjusts to it. In the beginning, he wouldn’t swim with his head in the water, and we told him to swim with his head down and he would do it every now and then, and now he does it all the time. He really is about improvement.”

And senior captain Nick Marcadis wants everyone to know that Amel is part of the team and not just some sort of mascot. He swims in the 50-yard freestyle, and his best time is 1:12 — by comparison, Dalton All-American Taylor Dale swam a 23.91 at nationals — which won’t scare any record books, but he is still out there competing.

“It is not his physical contributions to the team, but he really enhances the morale and spirit of the team,” Macadis said. “Every time he gets in the water, it is constant applause from everyone in the stands. It is great. We definitely try to push him. He has limits like everyone else, but we treat him like just one of the guys. We have running jokes with him, and he is just a member of the team.”

In the summer, Pahlivanovic plans to swim in the state’s Special Olympics here in Dalton. He has competed in running events, the shot put and the long jump in past Special Olympics, but he is ready to get in the pool and will continue to train even as the high school season comes to an end with the state meet in Atlanta on Feb. 10-11. The Special Olympics is where he wants to shine.

“I want to win a medal,” he said.

No doubt he will have plenty of fans wearing blue and orange cheering him on. When it is over, he can look up at them and say, “That’s my team.”

Chris Whitfield is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. Write to him at chriswhitfield@daltoncitizen.com.

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