Roddy Gayle's Unified Sports team ready to cheer on their friend at Ohio State
There are quite a few phrases you could use to describe Ohio State's Roddy Gayle: athletic sophomore, emerging talent, dangerous shooter, occasionally prolific guard.
Winston Mullen chooses simply: "My friend."
And that, maybe, cuts to the heart of who Gayle is to Mullen and his classmates better than any other description.
Mullen, 18 years old, is a senior at Lewiston-Porter High School in Youngstown, New York. Lew-Port, as it’s often referred to, is Gayle’s alma mater, the place where he started and finished high school with a transfer to Mount Pleasant (Utah) Wasatch Academy sandwiched into the middle of his prep experience. This spring, Mullen will play his fourth season with the school’s Unified Sports basketball team, an initiative through the Special Olympics that helps students with intellectual disabilities participate in different sports.
In order to make the experience work, teams need peer volunteers to help coach, direct and assist players in their development and in the gameplay. And when Gayle finished his final season at Wasatch and transferred back home during the spring of 2022 to graduate with his friends, he heard of the need for volunteers with the Unified basketball team and raised his hand.
The relationships he built that year and maintained when he returned home after his freshman year at Ohio State will result in a special cheering section Saturday at Value City Arena. When the Buckeyes host Penn State, a block of kids from Lewiston-Porter will be in the crowd.
They’ll be cheering for Ohio State to end a three-game losing streak, and especially for Gayle, their friend.
“The kids really look up to Roddy”
The New York state teacher of the year in 2014 and an inductee into the Teachers Hall of Fame in 2017, Ashli Dreher is a special education instructor at Lewiston-Porter and has long been an advocate for the Unified program.
Of the 10 students in her classroom this year, eight will be at Value City Arena on Saturday.
“The kids really look up to Roddy,” she said. “Not only is he a star athlete, but he’s also just a very, very caring person and a great role model for our students at school with special needs.”
Thanks to the two years he’s spent helping coach, teach and support the Unified program, Gayle has become part of the curriculum in Dreher’s class. Her students track Ohio State’s record and Gayle’s individual stats compared to the rest of his teammates, using the data to create graphs and charts they use during math lessons.
His impact stretches to the arts, too. Kyle Gomesky is a junior in Dreher’s class who has participated in the Unified program. He’s never seen Gayle play in person, but as part of an art project, he began to sketch a portrait of his friend. With a little bit of assistance from his teacher, it turned into a black-and-white, mirror-like replication of Gayle’s image complete with his signature headband.
“I sketched it out and later I did some fadings and (my teacher) helped a little bit,” he said. “It was a little hard. The nose area was the difficult part because I’m not great at drawing noses.”
He gave a copy to Matt Bradshaw, Gayle’s coach at Lewiston-Porter, to thank him for helping Gayle grow into a Division I player. Saturday, the class will be hoisting self-made signs adorned with that drawing.
“I think he’ll love it, just getting the support from our school and Unified,” Gomesky said.
Dreher said the class will use some of the money it earns from its weekly “What’s Popping Wednesday” popcorn sale in the school to afford some of the expenses for the 14-person trip, with a van leaving Saturday at 5:30 a.m. to get to Columbus in time for the noon game. Other costs are covered by the school’s transportation budget.
“It takes a very special young person at that age to set aside time to come back to their high school, to watch students with special needs play basketball, to give them advice, to give them a high-five and really be supportive of them,” she said of Gayle. “I think that’s what makes him a special student-athlete is that he does care about other people and understands that his talent can be used to lift other people up, which is what he does when he comes back to watch a Unified game.”
Now the kids get to repay the favor.
Roddy Gayle, the coach
Steve Mullen, Winston’s dad, said that his son never saw Gayle play basketball for his alma mater. His only connection to him is the Unified program.
“They know him as part of their team,” Steve Mullen said. “Winston doesn’t see him as some great basketball player. He never saw him play basketball, but just as someone that was a part of their team.”
Two years ago, Gomesky said he was struggling with his jumper when Gayle broke down a number of fundamentals for him. Without hesitation, Gomesky runs down the to-do list Gayle said he learned from watching Kobe Bryant: bend his knees, have the ball straight, palm almost at the end of the ball, raise up, flick it and have your middle finger back towards you.
“He’s really good,” Winston Mullen said. “He’s very helpful and he gives us encouragement.”
Gayle knows his friends will be on hand for the game. Dreher said one of their teachers happened to be at Monday’s game at Michigan, where they caught up with Gayle and the guard expressed his excitement at the opportunity to play in front of his Unified team.
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It’s a genuine feeling of appreciation and equality from Gayle, Steve Mullen said, that has so endeared him to players like his son.
“I mean, he’s such a great guy, you know?” Gomesky said. “He was always an honest person. He was very helpful when we need to learn how to make a shot or learn how to do layups or drills that will help us whenever we use them at some point.”
Saturday, their coach will be on the court, trying to will Ohio State to a streak-snapping win. His friends will be attentively watching.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State's Roddy Gayle to play in front of friends this weekend
