During its meeting last week, the ECAC Board of Directors adopted an inclusive sport strategy that will provide new intercollegiate athletic opportunities for student-athletes with a variety of disabilities attending ECAC member colleges and universities in Division I, II and III.

By taking this pioneering action, the ECAC becomes the first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-sanctioned conference to provide a range of options for students with disabilities to realise their dreams of competing as intercollegiate varsity athletes.

"The ECAC is proud to promote and provide opportunities to potentially thousands of student-athletes with disabilities who attend ECAC member institutions," said ECAC President and chief executive Kevin McGinniss.

"This historic action systematically includes student-athletes with disabilities in intercollegiate sports for the first time in any NCAA Division.

"I believe this action will allow many more students, including wounded veterans returning to college, to experience the benefits of competitive intercollegiate sports."

Disabled athletes in ECAC member colleges and universities will be given more sporting opportunities in leagues and championships ©Getty Images



The action is a culmination of a year of planning and discussions led by Ted Fay, who is a sport management professor at SUNY Cortland, and a Paralympic expert as well as an ECAC Senior Advisor on Inclusive Sport.

He engaged former and current Paralympic athletes, coaches, intercollegiate sport administrators and athletic directors, and key officials from disability sport organisations and national sport governing bodies in helping to design this strategy.

The strategy will see reasonable accommodations added to existing events for athletes with a disability and the inclusion of adaptive-specific events to existing ECAC Championship sports such as track and field, swimming, rowing, and tennis.

Work on the initiative will begin immediately with the first results anticipated to be seen in the 2015 to 2016 academic year.

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