“My ultimate goal is always for our kids to feel like they got to do as many activities as any other gen-ed student in this school.”
For Mrs. Tammy Jauch, a District 155 speech pathologist and one of three head coaches of CG Buddies Basketball alongside adaptive PE teachers Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Schwartz, this ultimate goal she alluded to for FCS and CG Buddies has continued to grow throughout the last several years after sprouting with humble beginnings.
“When we first had [the FCS Program], there were only about six students,” Jauch said.
Now, after around eight years of FCS at Cary-Grove High School, that early sprout has turned into a giant blossom, with an offshoot of FCS, CG Buddies, becoming a mainstay club at Cary-Grove, and the FCS Program enriching the lives of nearly 50 students each year.
The D Hallway at CG has become not just the “FCS Hallway” but the headquarters of a large handful of students learning amazing things to showcase out in the world after high school.
As FCS grew into its current success, it created more opportunities for CG Buddies athletics.
“It’s probably about four years ago that I started noticing Special Olympics events, and was like, ‘This would be really neat to start at Cary-Grove,’” Mrs. Jauch said. “(CG) had been doing a track Special Olympics group prior to that, one or two students had done it, but it was kind of small.
“Then I’m like, ‘Hey, let’s do basketball!’ We had a lot of students interested that were coming in as freshmen. We started that three years ago. I think we had about 12 athletes on that team,” she said.
Today, Special Olympics basketball is expanded, with two teams (possibly three teams next year, according to Mrs. Jauch) and a plethora of amazing student-athletes.
“I think (we) had almost 30 athletes,” Mrs. Jauch said of this year. “We had two teams – almost had to break it into three – and we were able to pull in some kids from Crystal Lake South so they’d have a home base.”
This expansion has been instrumental for providing the FCS program – and its students – with something that they can call their own for the four years they walk the halls as Trojans, and you could say it puts the “Special” in Special Olympics.
“A lot of our students have siblings who are in sports and other activities and they get dragged to all those events, but they don’t get to be the star all the time, so this gives them that opportunity to shine,” Mrs. Jauch said.
“The bleachers are full with aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins – everybody can come watch them play – and they’re all really good! We have a good team! We have some pretty amazing talent.”
For Mrs. Jauch, it’s been amazing to see what the FCS Program coupled with CG Buddies basketball has created and become.
“It’s awesome – it’s the reason I come to work everyday,” she said. “I love that [positive] feeling – I want that for all my kids all the time just because they all deserve that opportunity.”
In a world where everyone seeks to be an influence, it isn’t difficult to see this make its way into Cary-Grove’s halls – as well as its athletics – Buddies basketball included.
“We’ll have those students that say ‘No, this isn’t my year to try it, I’m a little too nervous to get out on the court,’” Mrs. Jauch said. “Then we’ll have them come watch or be part of our All-School game, and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is awesome!’ I think it helps everybody realize that anybody can play.
“Even if we have to lower the basket so that they can make a shot, they get that ability to get to do something that they didn’t think they could do, which I think is the best part, is watching them do things they didn’t expect to do.”
The effect that CG Buddies basketball and the FCS program overall has had on the Cary-Grove community is immense, with events being posted on the Trojan Tidbits constantly and other events being plastered on walls at CG or being talked about between the Buddies and their leaders, but the impact also goes beyond the things we can see or hear – it goes into what and how we feel as Trojans everyday.
“Just in general, the school spirit is around [the Buddies],” Mrs. Jauch said. “I think for the most part [CG is] a very positive and very inclusive school, and that’s always been my goal, and I just want to keep that going.”
Speaking of keeping it going, not only could there be three Buddies basketball teams next year, as already alluded to, but the CG Buddies program will certainly keep expanding, providing even more positivity for every student and staff member to feel as they go around the school every day.
“8th grade night, I mean every year we’re the table that everyone comes to, like, ‘I know about Buddies’, ‘I want to be part of this club’,” Mrs. Jauch said.
For Mrs. Jauch, her goals with Special Olympics basketball and track are the same as what the CG Buddies program has morphed into – getting as many kids as possible involved with the athletics for Special Olympics just how CG Buddies has gotten as many kids as possible involved with it. Involvement has certainly equaled more success, and success will continue with increasing involvement.
“I want to continue to build, get more kids involved,” she said. “It only can get better from here.”