“When I was younger, a friend of mine was paralyzed in an accident. He was a good athlete, and he went from playing sports to being wheelchair-bound. This was placed on my heart first back then,” said Andy Gibbs, founder and director of the Miracle League of Valdosta. An athlete himself, Gibbs would go on to play football at Valdosta State University. Every chance he got, he helped kids with disabilities throughout the community. In 2014, as an adult, he learned about Miracle League. Immediately, the league piqued his interest.
Miracle League is a non-profit organization that provides opportunities for kids and adults with mental and physical disabilities to play organized sports. Miracle League began in Conyers; within a four-year period, it had spread to over 40 communities. Valdosta, however, did not have such a league. Gibbs learned of Miracle League in 2004 from ESPN’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.” He thought the league would work well in Valdosta, so he made a phone call to the league’s corporate office in Conyers.
Gibbs received the information he was looking for and paid the necessary fees to start the league. The league, however, floundered.
“The ball just wasn’t rolling like it needed to. I guess God just decided it wasn’t time for it right now,” Gibbs said.
Ten years later, in 2014, Gibbs received a call from George Page of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Department about Miracle League. The recreation department wanted such a league, and Gibbs’s name came up as someone who had already done a lot of the legwork, albeit a decade prior. The day after the call from the recreation department came in, Jeremy Davis, the league’s president, called Gibbs and expressed interest in starting a league as well. Everyone met, they assembled a board of directors, and a year later kids and adults were playing games.
The league pairs players with able-bodied volunteers to help them during the games. Right now, the league only offers baseball. There are two seasons, spring and fall, and each season lasts six weeks. The league holds games on a regular field at Freedom Park in Valdosta on Tuesday evenings; now the league is raising funds to build a special rubberized field at the park to accommodate players with severe disabilities. The field will be 200 feet long, and the warning track will double as a running track. With the larger field and the addition of a running track, the league will expand to include soccer and track. Right now, there are 83 players from ages four on up.
“If you want to play, no matter how old you are, and you have an extreme disability, you can play,” Gibbs said.
According to Gibbs, community support for Miracle League has been tremendous. The cost of the new facility is around $1.2 million. At the time of this story, the league had raised $325,000 in just two months and had even more money pledged to the project. All told, nearly half the price tag of the field has been raised or pledged.
“I’m amazed at the support we’ve received. We didn’t realize just how big this was going to be. We have 350 to 400 volunteers. We’ve got more than we can use,” Gibbs said.
For more information on Miracle League, visit www.miracleleagueofvaldosta.com.
Special Feature/South Georgia/May 2015
Miracle League of Valdosta
Valdosta, Ga.
Robert Preston Jr.
Miracle League: 10 years in the making and giving everyone a chance to compete
