Ithaca Unified soccer wraps up inaugural season

Ithaca High School has always been a strong supporter of Unified sports, which provides multiple physical activities for differently abled students. This year, the school’s Unified offerings grew once again with the addition of soccer, becoming the fourth Unified activity at IHS along with basketball, bowling and physical education.

The inaugural season of soccer consisted of two one-hour practices each week. The culminating event took place last month at Horseheads, where the Little Red got the chance to play some formal games against other teams in the area. There was also a recognition ceremony at the end held by members of the Special Olympics. Section IV is also the first in the state to pilot Unified soccer.

Shawn Goodman is the head coach of the inaugural Unified soccer team at IHS. Goodman, who is also the school psychologist, is a lifelong soccer player. But he wasn’t interested in coaching at the varsity or junior varsity level, instead preferring to coach at a less structured and competitive level.

“I’m much more interested in helping kids love the game and enjoy it,” Goodman said. “With conventional sports, I’m seeing a lot of burnout and too much intensity. A lot of kids who are incredible players work so hard to get to college to play at the college level and end up quitting after a year. …This looks much more like how I played sports with my friends back in the ’80s and ’90s, which was just gathering at an empty lot or even on the street to just organize and play.”

Goodman was also inspired to go for the head coach position after seeing the broad appeal of the other Unified sports at IHS.

“I went to the basketball games, and I was just blown away,” Goodman said. “People here will talk about how going to a game is really emotional because it’s just beautiful what’s happening out there. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in our culture that I’m aware of. Everybody wants to be involved, which is amazing. So, when I randomly heard that they were looking for a coach a week before practices were supposed to start, I just threw my hat in, and it’s been great. It’s been the high point of my year, for sure.”

Unified soccer immediately attracted tons of interest throughout IHS. In fact, there were many times where a few students couldn’t join practices because the numbers were too high. Some were actually on the varsity teams or just on their way home from school. Throughout the season, more and more students would email Goodman or come out to practice and ask about joining the team.

As for those currently on the team, both differently abled students and their partners thoroughly enjoyed playing and are already eager to come back next season.

“One of the athletes sent me a bunch of emails just to make sure he can be on the team next year and tell me how excited he is and how proud of himself he was that he played well,” Goodman said. “He had a sore ankle in the final event and he played through it, and he didn’t think he could. He’s just super excited.”

While the season finale at Horseheads was the highlight of the season, Goodman’s favorite moment was the very first scrimmage. With the varying levels of soccer experience, Goodman didn’t know what to expect when he divided the squad up. It’s safe to say he was pleasantly surprised.

“When I set them loose to play that first game, it just flowed,” Goodman said. “They just ran and played and laughed and kicked and fell. It was like this magic moment. We’re coming out of COVID. I saw a bunch of kids with a wildly different group of kids just playing and having fun, and it was just really nice to see.”

The plan for next year is to have a full slate of regular season action, while the third year will include playoffs. After a wildly successful inaugural season, Goodman is looking forward to bringing more students of all backgrounds together to enjoy “the beautiful game.”

“The game brings a lot of joy to a lot of people,” Goodman said. “It’s also one of the few sports I’ve participated in that is a bridge for culture, language and, with Unified, disability awareness. It’s just so nicely suited to bringing different kinds of people together and sharing this one thing. Everybody can chase a ball, and when you’re doing that, nobody seems to care about language differences, culture differences, disabilities, any of that.”

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