GAIL WHITE Football players deliver a forward pass of good fortune

When Columbiana football coach Bob Spaite invited the mentally and physically handicapped children from Camp Rachel to the high school this past summer for a track and field day with his football players, he called the event "paying it forward."
"I heard the phrase on an audio cassette I have of Woody Hayes speaking at a commencement ceremony," Spaite explains. "He was quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson."
Spaite shares the paying it forward philosophy: "You can never, ever, ever pay back what people have done for you. You can only return what has been done for you by giving to someone else."
For years, Spaite has employed the philosophy with the parents of his players. Dads have gotten involved and built a weight room and press box, paying it forward to their children. Coach has encouraged mothers to become involved with the program, making dinners for the players and raising funds for needs of the team.
Camp
This year, Spaite thought it would be a good idea to teach his players the meaning of "paying it forward." He could never have anticipated from that one day at the track with the Camp Rachel kids how far forward his players would pay.
The camp is held annually during the summer at Leonard Kirtz School in Austintown and is run by the Mahoning County Council for Retarded Citizens.
"It has mushroomed beyond what I could have possibly hoped for," Spaite admits with a tone of complete humility in his voice.
The day had a profound effect on players whose day of paying it forward was their first one-on-one exposure to children with cerebral palsy and spina bifida. Most had never pushed a wheelchair or held a tight-fisted hand, wrenched with disease. Except for the few with small brothers and sisters, these players had not held a spoon and helped feed another person or ever wiped a face clean, other than their own.
Each player took home a story of their day. At least one decided to go to college for special education. All are anxiously awaiting to pay it forward next year.
Kept going
David Rice, a senior at Columbiana, simply couldn't wait a whole year. He decided to pay it forward for the rest of the summer.
"I went to Camp Rachel every day I could," he said.
Part of David's motivation to help at Camp Rachel comes from his own handicap. David is deaf.
"With his hearing aid, he has 15 to 20 percent hearing in one ear," David's mother, Mary explains.
When the Camp Rachel campers came to Columbiana, David noticed a counselor struggling to understand a young camper. The camper had a speech impediment and was using sign language to communicate. The camper had some hand coordination problems and the counselor wasn't proficient in sign language. David was.
"He was trying to tell them that he likes the Mutant Ninja Turtles," David said. "He was spelling Donatello."
The counselor told David that the camper had been trying to tell them this since camp had started weeks earlier. David released the words the child had so desperately been trying to share.
David knows that without the support he has received from his family and the community, his words and thoughts could have been trapped inside as well.
It is this knowledge that makes David's heart swell with the urge to pay it forward.
Sign language
You see, David wouldn't have been able to help that little camper if he hadn't had trouble with Spanish II.
"David did well in Spanish I," Mary said. The conversational nature of Spanish II became difficult for him.
Mary approached the school about starting an American Sign Language class. The school immediately agreed.
Today, David is the only student in Sign Language III. But there is an entire class of Sign Language I.
David can never, ever repay his school for creating a special class just for him.
And one little camper from Camp Rachel can never, ever repay David for understanding "Donatello" one afternoon on a track with a bunch of football players.
gwhite@vindy.com