{"id":13968,"date":"2018-10-31T11:16:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T15:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/?p=13968"},"modified":"2018-10-31T13:19:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T17:19:41","slug":"coopers-big-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/coopers-big-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper’s Big Game"},"content":{"rendered":"


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You may have seen our Facebook post sharing the NBC-2 story about Cooper\u2019s Big Game.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Since then, we got to talk with Cooper\u2019s father, Billy Griffin, and Riverdale Raiders Football Coach, James Delgado\u00a0more about this special event.<\/p>\n

Cooper has Down syndrome and participates in programming at\u00a0GiGi\u2019s\u00a0Playhouse of Fort Myers.\u00a0 His adorable smile is even featured in our Welcome Windows, greeting everyone who comes\u00a0by.\u00a0\u00a0 There he is in the lower\u00a0right!\u00a0 We have always been so proud of Cooper\u00a0and his family.<\/p>\n

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Recently, his family moved to a new home so that Cooper could attend a certain school program.\u00a0 \u201cWe first met staff from there when they participated in a Buddy Walk last year,\u201d Billy explained, \u201cCooper latched onto them very quickly.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 What they have experienced since goes beyond their hopes and dreams.<\/p>\n

NBC reports that two years ago Riverdale High School\u2019s football coach, James Delgado,\u00a0started having his players assist with carline every Friday at the elementary school nearby.\u00a0 This has resulted in an increase in school-wide attendance on Fridays where a drop-off in attendance is the norm at most schools.\u00a0 Cooper was particularly excited about these visits and soon was invited to\u00a0become\u00a0an honorary member of the Riverdale Raiders football team because of his special bond with the team.\u00a0 He was even invited to lead the team onto the field at their Senior Night recently!\u00a0 Coach Delgado tells us, \u201cOur players naturally drew towards Cooper like so many other people do and thought it would be neat to have him join us as an honorary captain. I don’t know that they had any idea how much this would mean to everyone but I’m so proud of them for their hearts to care for others. We coordinated with Dr. Barfield at River Hall and she set up a meeting with the Griffin family on a Friday knowing that we would be there helping open car doors and being prepared to present Cooper with his jersey. The Griffins had no idea why they were\u00a0there\u00a0and it proved to be an emotional surprise for everyone!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came Coopers Big Game!\u00a0 Coach Delgado tells us,\u00a0\u201cIt was such an important game because we were honoring our seniors as it was the last regular-season home game of the year. It was also the last game we played in\u00a0October\u00a0so we were doing a pink out to honor breast cancer awareness and honoring Cooper to help shed light onto Down Syndrome awareness. Having Cooper on the field with us was such a blessing. Seeing our kids genuinely enjoy him does the heart good! To gain a victory over a good football team was icing on the cake but I felt like we were already winners before the game ever kicked off.\u201d\u00a0 We could not agree more!<\/p>\n

This story is about Cooper\u2019s friendship with the Raiders football team;\u00a0however,\u00a0Cooper\u2019s\u00a0dad noted,\u00a0\u201cIt seems like everyone is making a big deal over Cooper,\u00a0but I think for this particular school they make a big deal of every student. We celebrate this because it is acceptance–not just DS acceptance but acceptance of everyone regardless of their uniqueness. Dr. Barfield and her staff are real super heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGO RAIDERS!\u201d you can hear Cooper exclaim while filming for the news story with his team.\u00a0 His parents report this was the first time he put two words together.\u00a0 To say that Cooper is inspired by his team seems to be an\u00a0understatement!\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At\u00a0GiGi\u2019s\u00a0Playhouse, we celebrate the spirit of what we call\u00a0\u201cGeneration G\u201d, a challenge to ALL people to \u201cBe accepting.\u00a0 Be generous.\u00a0 Be Kind.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 While our focus is especially on people with Down syndrome, we can be inspired by the real-life super heroes in our midst to use this outlook in every moment every day!\u00a0 Join us by taking the Generation G Promise at\u00a0https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/generation-g\/<\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0 Your promise is a daily reminder to always act with acceptance and generosity.<\/p>\n

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Thank you to the Griffin Family for providing pictures from Cooper\u2019s Big Game.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Coach Delgado for sharing his reflections with us.<\/p>\n

Thank you to NBC-2 for covering this awesome story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have seen our Facebook post sharing the NBC-2 story about Cooper\u2019s Big Game.\u00a0\u00a0Since then, we got to talk with Cooper\u2019s father, Billy Griffin, and Riverdale Raiders Football Coach, James Delgado\u00a0more about this special event. Cooper has Down syndrome and participates in programming at\u00a0GiGi\u2019s\u00a0Playhouse of Fort Myers.\u00a0 His adorable smile is even featured in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/fortmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}