Dad battles to get son with Down syndrome back on playing field

by Shawn Windser, Detriot Free Press and Delmarvanow.com:
Until last December, nothing scared Dean Dompierre more than the thought of speaking in public. If this seems odd for a man who teaches science and social studies to fifth-graders, well, Dompierre understands. He’s equally baffled.
Still, Dompierre knew that if he were going to have any chance to convince the Michigan High School Athletic Association to change its rules to allow his son to play football during his senior year, he would have to overcome his deepest phobia.
He feared letting down his son, Eric, even more.
Eric Dompierre was born with an extra copy of chromosome 21, a genetic fluke that slows cognitive function and generally stunts physical growth. Jill and Dean Dompierre worried for their son’s future when he was born with Down syndrome 19 years ago. They never imagined that one day Eric would be driving, or working, or enjoying friendships. Or playing high school football.
Certainly the father never figured football would become so central to his son’s identity. But it did. And because Eric needed to be held back in his early years of elementary school, Dean knew his son would be too old to play his senior year — the MHSAA dictated that kids can’t participate in sports their senior year if they turn 19 before Sept. 1.
This realization sent Dompierre on a 2-year odyssey that landed him on national television and the floor of the state Legislature, that taught him to navigate social media and to wield the power of public opinion, that expanded his world from a middle school classroom tucked in an old brick schoolhouse a few minutes from Lake Superior to the home office of the statistician of the Detroit Lions.
Along the way, Dompierre and his son became local celebrities, proxies for anyone who ever tried to fight the Man. Everywhere the father turned, someone offered to help — politicians, principals, computer programmers, neighbors and fathers in communities downstate who had heard about Dompierre’s crusade and figured he was fighting for their children, too.
Two weeks ago, a 5-foot-2-inch, 125-pound senior at Ishpeming High ran onto the football field with his teammates. His father and mother were in the stands, along with his grandparents on both sides and several cousins and family friends.
Eric didn’t wave. Or nod. Or give his extended family any hint that he knew they were bunched up in the stands -- he is, after all, a teenager. His father didn’t mind, though. That he was on the field was enough.
Dean Dompierre, 48, recently began his 26th year of teaching middle school. His father, Dave Dompierre, was a teacher, too. A couple of weeks ago on a Friday afternoon, Dean Dompierre broke down photosynthesis for a roomful of fifth-graders in Ishpeming. Outside, clouds formed overhead and Dompierre cracked the windows to let the cool, damp breeze flow in.
Downstairs, in another section of the building that houses the high school and the middle school, Dompierre’s son sports his game-day jersey in study hall.
Eric fit into these halls so seamlessly that he didn’t know he had Down syndrome until the ninth grade, when his father took him into their basement sauna so they could talk. Eric was playing on the freshman football team, attempting extra points. After he made his first one, a local TV station wanted to do a human interest story.
Dompierre and his wife didn’t want to tell Eric he had a disability because they didn’t want to give him an excuse not to do something. But they agreed to do the story and decided it was time to tell Eric.
“So we are taking a sauna … and I said, ‘Have you ever heard of Down syndrome?’ He said no. I said it’s a condition where there is an extra chromosome.
“I said some people consider it a handicap. You know how sometimes for kids with Down syndrome it’s hard to catch on to things? That’s why sometimes it’s a little harder for you to catch on to things. … But once you do catch on you remember it well. You have a great memory. … That’s just the opposite of me. I can catch on to things quick, but I can’t remember them. So you and I are both in the same boat.”

Wait nearly over for Ishpeming football senior Eric Dompierre, who has Down syndrome

by Shawn Windsor from The Detriot Free Press:
The walk from Eric Dompierre's house to the Ishpeming High School football field is less than two minutes. Out the front door, north on Main, west on Empire, into the parking lot, through the chain-link fence, onto the green grass.
It's a walk Dompierre has made hundreds of times the last three years, a walk that has helped shape his identity as he made his way through high school. On Monday morning, Dompierre made that walk again, helmet in hand, breeze at his face. His father fought for more than two years so he could keep taking the walk, so he could have a chance to play football during his senior year.
Of all the stories that began Monday as high school teams from across the state held their first football practices, perhaps none was as unique as Dompierre's.
Dompierre, who has Down syndrome, turned 19 in January. That birthday put him at odds with the Michigan High School Athletic Association, the governing body for the state's high school athletic programs that dictates no student shall compete in any athletic competition if they turn 19 before Sept. 1.
At least until Dompierre's father, Dean Dompierre, managed to convince the MHSAA and its member schools to change its bylaws and allow students with certain disabilities to apply for a waiver if they were too old. Eric Dompierre and his father got the rule changed. They applied for a waiver earlier this summer. A ruling is due Wednesday.
"We are optimistic," said the elder Dompierre, a sixth-grade elementary science teacher who has become something of a celebrity in this mining community near the shores of Lake Superior.
The opening of football season is nearly always reason for optimism. That includes places like Detroit Cass Tech, where the Public School League team aims to follow its improbable state title run last season with another this season, and at Birmingham Brother Rice, where 79-year-old coach Al Fracassa wants to cap off a marvelous career with a consecutive title.
Ishpeming High has designs on Ford Field in November, too.
The Hematites -- the nickname is taken from the mineral form of iron oxide -- lost in the quarterfinals of the state playoffs last season. The year before that, Ishpeming lost in the state title game to Hudson, 28-26.
Jeff Olson, the team's head coach, said he thinks his team has a chance to be good again, on the strength of his senior class and a football culture based on the area's mining ethos.
Olson likes football because it is hard.
"It's not for everybody," he said. "We appreciate anybody who comes out and puts in the work."
Dompierre showed effort from his first two-a-day practice three years ago as a freshman. He kept showing it during the off-season at local weight-training facilities and in his Christmas demands to his father, when he asked for a Bowflex so that he could lift and stretch in their basement.
Dompierre, a 5-foot-2, 140-pound receiver, is the shortest and smallest player on the team. Perhaps this is why he lifts and stretches and runs, as he did Monday for most of the morning and afternoon, even after practice, when a friend who took him to the prom showed up for a run.
"He's earned his place," Olson said. "He's had to keep fighting."
Last season, Dompierre got onto the field for one pass play. Mostly, his role is with special teams, which is why he spent the last hour of the morning session attempting extra points on the main football field, adjacent to the practice fields where the rest of the team scrimmaged.
Over and over Dompierre tried to kick the football through the uprights, roughly 19 yards from where he'd placed it; each time the ball ricocheting off the crossbar or knuckleballing underneath it.
"Good kick," said his dad, who was on the field to help Eric practice kicking.
The son may not entirely grasp the amount of work the father put in the last two years to give him a chance to keep playing. But he understands enough to know that his father is the reason he has a chance to keep playing. Still at this moment, like any other varsity football player, he'd rather his father not be here.
Dompierre wants to do it alone. And later tells his dad: "You are too protective. You give me too many tips."
What he really wants, of course, is for his father to watch from behind the fence, or from the stands. The son will find out later this week whether the father will keep getting that chance when the MHSAA makes its ruling on the waiver.
In the meantime, Dompierre is allowed to practice. So he will make that walk. Down the street, to the left, back to the right and out into the vast openness of possibility.

Father of 19-year-old with Down syndrome: 'I couldn't be happier' son will be allowed to play as senior

 
from the Detroit Free Press by Mick McCabe:
 
The crusade is over. The Michigan High School Athletic Association is going to let 'em play.
An overwhelming 94% of responding schools voted to approve an amendment to the MHSAA constitution enabling students with disabilities to petition to participate as 19-year-olds.
"I think it tells us what to do," MHSAA executive director Jack Roberts said.
It has been a 2 1/2-year battle for Dean Dompierre, who wants his 19-year-old son Eric, who has Down syndrome, to be able to play on the Ishpeming football and basketball teams.
"I couldn't be happier," Dean Dompierre said. "It's a relief, after 2 1/2 years, to get some positive results from this."
MHSAA rules prohibit students from participating in athletics if they turn 19 before Sept. 1. It was the only rule in the MHSAA handbook not to have any exceptions. Michigan was one of 27 states that did not allow waivers to the maximum age rule.
But as the Dompierres became more aggressive in telling their story -- father and son testified before the state education committee in May -- the state senate passed a resolution encouraging the MHSAA to change its constitution.
"I think there was a concern that the legislature would try to write a rule and might write it badly but pass it anyway," Roberts said. "The feeling was if this was to be done, it should be done right. It shouldn't be any other state's model. It should be what we thought would work best in Michigan."
Beginning this fall, students with medically documented disabilities recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act or Michigan's Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act can request a waiver to play as a 19-year-old if their educational process had been delayed before their enrollment in high school.
A student's disability must diminish physical and either intellectual or emotional capabilities and cannot create a health or safety risk to participants and does not create a competitive advantage for the team.

The waivers, which must be approved by the MHSAA's Executive Committee, will be for one year only and will allow students to compete in their first four years of high school enrollment.
Dean Dompierre began his campaign to add an amendment to the MHSAA's constitution when he realized Eric would be ineligible to play as a senior.
"I've spent hours and hours -- countless hours -- over the last 2 1/2 years sitting with a laptop in my lap, typing things up, sending things to people and receiving things from people. This certainly makes it all worth it," he said. "It's not just for Eric. It will be great to be able to see Eric play, but I'd love to be able to go to some other games to see kids who are going to benefit from this."
Roberts said the rule was not initially popular with school administrators, who were concerned over the growing number of disabilities and how the waiver process would be handled.
"I think the strength of the proposal we have prepared and has been adopted is this: There must be a medically documented disability before the student reaches seventh grade that has slowed the educational progress and is a direct cause of the slowed progress, and not just because the parents wanted to redshirt the kid," Roberts said.
Dompierre established a website ( letemplay.us) to present Eric's story. The website detailed the 23 states that allow waivers for students with disabilities to play as 19-year-olds and contained an online petition urging MHSAA officials to allow schools to vote on an amendment to allow a waiver.
"I never expected it to get as big as it did and to have as many people jump on board as did," Dompierre said. "The last I checked, it was over 93,000 people from all walks of life and all corners of the earth signed that petition. They had never ever met Eric, but they signed the petition. I'm sure there were hundreds, if not thousands, of letters sent to the MHSAA supporting these kids."

Watch ESPN's E:60 feature: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:7992850

Michigan High Schooler With Down Syndrome Might Get to Play Basketball Despite Age Issue

from Forbes by Bob Cook:
When the Ispheming Hematites 2012-13 boys basketball season tips off, a familiar figure might be at the end of the bench: 5-foot-1, 130-pound Eric Dompierre. Until today, May 7, it looked like there was zero chance that would happen, because the Michigan State High School Athletic Association wasn’t going to waive its rule that students who are 19 by Sept. 1 can’t play sports at member schools. This, despite Dompierre being 19 as a high school senior only because he started elementary school at a later age, a result of his Down syndrome.

However, the MHSAA issued a news release, following a spring meeting in the northern Michigan vacation hamlet of Gaylord, that opened up the possibility Dompierre will be allow to play.
Actually, the release made it abundantly clear that while the MHSAA is getting a lot of heat for not allowing Dompierre to play, it’s the member schools who have effectively prevented that from happening, and it’s the member schools who will decide whether that will happen. It also made it clear that it believed Ispheming High (located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) hadn’t followed the correct process to get a waiver in the first place. Dompierre isn’t mentioned by name.
Basically, the release reads like something an organization defensive about its image would put out after being publicly pressured to do something it wasn’t planning to do. (I would have the MHSAA respond to that statement, but the release concludes by saying, in bold type, that the organization won’t offer any further comment.)
From the release:

The Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, at its Spring meeting which concluded here today, approved a proposal for a vote by member schools which would change the organization’s Constitution to allow for a waiver of its maximum age limitation under narrowly defined circumstances.
Ballots will be mailed this week.  Schools have two weeks to return the ballots, which must be signed by the school principal and superintendent.  The MHSAA will post the wording of the proposal on its website not later than May 14.
…
Currently under MHSAA rules, a student who turns 19 prior to Sept. 1 of a school year is not eligible for interscholastic athletics.  Michigan is one of approximately 40 states which use this maximum or have a younger maximum age limit. The MHSAA’s Constitution, which can only be changed by a two-thirds vote of member schools, does not allow the maximum age rule to be waived.   Michigan is in the majority of states which do not allow waiver of the rule.
“We recognize that member schools have preferred a bright line for the maximum age rule,” said MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts.  “We have prepared for a vote of the membership what we believe is the best alternative – better for Michigan than any proposal we have reviewed from other sources.
“The Representative Council does not advance proposals it does not want the membership to support, and an affirmative vote by schools is being specifically requested on this proposal.”
Based on member school input, the Council previously rejected proposals from the same member school district for a constitutional vote in 2010 and 2011.  The school district did not exercise its option to launch its own petition drive of member schools; nor did it avail itself of an athletic eligibility advancement provision in the MHSAA Handbook which allows for over aged students to have four years of high school participation with their age group.

To be fair, the MHSAA is a member organization, and if the member schools don’t want to offer a waiver, the MHSAA’s hands are tied. (That was the point of the previous conversation I had with the organization when I first wrote about the Dompierre situation.)
So the MHSAA’s release couldn’t be plainer. The MHSAA is saying, if Eric Dompierre is not allowed to play, don’t blame us. Blame the high schools in Michigan for deciding the rulebook is more important than one student and one school that isn’t seeking a competitive advantage, that just wants to revel in the joy of an inspirational figure who generally comes in when the outcome of a game is no longer in doubt.

Rally Behind Teen With Down Syndrome Being Forced Off Team Due to Age

from NESN from John Beattie:


Rules are rules.

That's what "they" say.

Rules are also meant to be broken -- that's what a lot of other people say. But what are rules, really? Rules -- particularly in sports -- are meant to keep people safe. They're in place to even the playing field and to allow each person, place or thing involved a fair shot.

Eric Dompierre wasn't born with an even playing field -- he was born with Down Syndrome. but he doesn't go home after school at Ishpeming High School to lament his handicap, he goes to basketball practice. At least he used to, according to UpperMichigansSource.com

Dompierre is being forced to sit out his upcoming senior year of basketball because of an age rule that the MHSAA has in place, stating that players over the age of 18 years old aren't allowed to participate in sports.

"I'd be sad if I couldn't play with them and not have them in my life. They want me to play, and I want to play with them," Eric said.

Dompierre and the Ishpeming school district have already submitted two revisions to the rule. Both have been denied.

"He gets a lot of his confidence from the fact that he gets in the games, and he has a lot of support, not only from people here in Ishpeming, but people from all over the area are supportive of him. If he's told that he's not allowed to play anymore, I think he's going to lose a lot of that confidence. And that's been a key to his development," said Eric's dad, Dean.

A third proposal is in the works as we speak. In the meantime, a petition has been launched by Change.com that you can sign (right now) to help this worthwhile cause.

Michigan doesn't have to look far for inspiration as Ohio's High School Athletic Association waives the age rule for students with disabilities. In fact, 23 other states allow students who suffer from disabilities to play high school sports after 18, as well.

So what's the hold up?

The MHSAA handbook has the rule in place for a reason. In fact, all handbooks have very important rules for very strict and ideal reasons. But this rule isn't one of them -- not when it comes to Eric, at least.

This isn't an argument about rules, whether you feel they're meant to be bent, broken, untouched or torched. This is matter of evening Eric's playing field for just one more year and not letting his handicap get the better of him, even if it's for one more high school basketball season. It's also an argument for all future student-athletes with disabilities to be able to at least enjoy sports and enjoy the lifelong lessons that come with teamwork, camaraderie and competition. What the state will sacrifice in rewriting a rulebook will not even begin to compare to the joy Eric gains from being with his teammates for one final year.

To sign the petition that will grant Eric one more year of eligibility, click here>>


update from The New York Times:

A third request, which was submitted March 26, suggests language used in Ohio and seven other states that include similar age-rule exceptions for students with disabilities, with no specific reference to Down syndrome. It could be the Dompierres’ best — and last — chance to change the rule.

Roberts said the “broadening definition” of disabilities led to a discussion of where the line would be drawn, and raised concerns about the potential number of waiver requests. Such an exception could open up the state association to allegations in court, he said, as the lack of an exception did in 1995 in an age-rule case that reached the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The association was a defendant, and the court found, according to Roberts, “to decide which disabilities should and shouldn’t apply for waiver put an undue burden on the association.”

Dean Dompierre first did the math regarding his son’s eligibility four years ago, after the varsity basketball coach saw Eric playing in the gym and said, “I’ve got him down as a four-year player.” Eric soon began attending off-season workouts and also joined the football team as a backup kicker. The basketball season ended in March, but Dean started preparing Eric for the possibility that his athletic career was ending when the second request was denied. He answered with more uncertainty when Eric would ask, “How are we doing with the law?”

Dean posted a petition in support of his son on the high school’s Web site on March 23. A week later, more than 70,000 people had signed it.

Dompierre has also sought help from Deborah Moore, the associate commissioner of the Ohio High School Athletic Association, who wrote her state’s age-rule exception.

In Ohio, if a student is considered disabled as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the school’s principal, on behalf of the student, can submit an age-exception application, consisting of an outline of the disability and statements — to gather rivaling perspectives — from the principal and an administrator of a school that plays the student’s school in sports, outlining four main criteria: safety risk, physical advantage, competitive equity and redshirting.

“This is basically a rule of compassion,” Moore said.

Moore could not recall any cases in Ohio that had ended in court. Over nine years, statistics provided by Moore showed 24 disabled high school students had been approved and 16 had been denied, with one pending.

Roberts said the Michigan association had not specifically investigated the success of Ohio’s rule.

It is unlikely that a decision will be made regarding Eric Dompierre until May, when the association’s representative council is next scheduled to meet.

“Ultimately, the rules for Michigan high school athletics are not to be established by online petitions and they’re not going to be established by what happens in other states,” Roberts said. “It’s going to be determined by what the schools of this state want for its operation.”