Being blind is no deterrent for Addison Trail runner Zuniga
No one has to be left behind, Celsa Zuniga said. Everyone must have an opportunity.
Her son, Daniel, is seizing his.
A blind student in Addison Trail's School Association for Special Education in DuPage County program, Daniel Zuniga Jr. joined the Blazers track team April 1.
“I'm proud that I've overstepped my boundaries,” he said Monday, two days after his first race Saturday at Glenbard South.
Running in Lane 1 with SASED aide Luke Paoletti striding alongside in the infield, each holding one end of a short, TheraBand-type strap, Zuniga ran the 100-meter dash in an official 21.29 seconds. Each step drew applause from athletes and fans in the grandstand.
His time is immaterial.
“I was a bit nervous. I didn't expect to set any speed records for my first one. I wanted to make a base for my records. That's the first number, now I can build off of it,” Zuniga said.
“I honestly did like it. The feeling of just waiting at the starting block. I really felt the energy of a race, a true race.”
The youngest of Daniel Sr. and Celsa Zuniga's four children, Daniel had been a healthy tot. Two months before his fourth birthday, he caught a fever and Celsa gave him medication for it as she had in the past.
This time he suffered a devastating reaction. Blisters formed on his skin and after two days without improvement the Zunigas took him to the hospital.
Doctors told them Daniel had developed Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and toxic epidural necrolysis, a severe and even life-threatening skin reaction caused by certain medications as common as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“They treated him like a burn victim,” Celsa Zuniga said.
Doctors induced a coma “for a couple weeks,” she said, due to the pain of the burning skin and its removal. She said her son was unable to open his eyes for three months due to swelling, and subsequent corneal transplants were unsuccessful in restoring more than the minimal light perception in his right eye.
“It affected multiple things, including my eyesight, some of my hearing and of course my skin,” said Daniel Jr., whose body remains scarred particularly on the upper body.
“We almost lost him. He almost died from this,” Celsa Zuniga said. “It was a horrible experience. But he's a very happy boy. He's very healthy and if you talk to his teachers they always say good things about him.”
The Zunigas live in Aurora but due to Daniel's special needs he attended several DuPage County schools that offered SASED programs for visually impaired students. In his first semester at Addison Trail, he made the freshman Distinction Honor Roll.
In February, after discussing academic and athletic options with school personnel, Jacquelyn Jackson, Zuniga's resource teacher, informed Blazers boys track coach James Ziebka that Daniel was interested in joining the team.
“I wanted to see how it was as a runner,” Zuniga said. “I already played an instrument (violin) in orchestra, but I wanted to get into something more physical, see how that goes for me.”
Ziebka had to get up to speed.
“I really had no idea where to start,” the coach said. “And after speaking with our athletic director (Matt Thompson) about it we just kind of had to default to the IHSA website and kind of go from there.”
In what Ziebka called a “pretty straightforward” process, school administration submitted the proper permission forms and paperwork, and the Illinois High School Association cleared Zuniga to run the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes and compete in discus and shot put. Ziebka has Zuniga scheduled to run the 100 at Notre Dame on April 18 and maybe both the 100 and 200 at Willowbrook on April 26.
“He's just doing his best to kind of keep up, get accustomed to the increase in physical activity. He's doing a great job. The kid's got a great attitude, he likes being around the guys, likes being around the team, so it's been fun,” Ziebka said.
“As of now I'm still learning the basics of running,” Zuniga said. That's where his running aide, Luke Paoletti, comes in.
“Right now I'm kind of just teaching him the fundamentals of what it really means to be running,” said Paoletti, a Maine South graduate.
“One of the things I've noticed with him is when he runs a lot of the time both of his feet are on the ground. When people run normally there's a period of time when both their feet are off the ground and in the air, and he's still working toward that. He's getting there, leaps and bounds,” he said.
Paoletti called Zuniga's pursuit of form “tenacious,” and was pleasantly surprised with his run at Glenbard South.
Celsa Zuniga didn't know quite what to make of all this. Given her son's history she was wary when he told her track was not merely “like a game at school.” She remains a little skittish.
“I think it's good,” she said, “but I feel concerned that he can get hurt.”
Daniel Zuniga Jr. is taking it slowly. He'll determine this season whether or not he'll remain in track.
“If I end up continuing this for multiple years I don't see why I couldn't join the Paralympics,” said Zuniga, who does compete off and on in the Paralympic sport of goal ball.
Meanwhile, he enjoys being part of a team and the prospect of making new friends.
“It's not every day you run into a blind person, excuse the pun,” he said. “But it's interesting, they can actually talk to me, ask me about stuff. And yeah, we're all human beings, regardless of disability, or lack of.”
A sport of her own
Once, Glenbard East baseball coach Joel Pelland said, Rams softball coach Dawn Chantos tried to recruit one of his players.
“Not a chance,” Pelland said.
That's because Mary Schoenke is all baseball.
A four-year player in the Rams system and a lifelong baseball player with international experience at the LG CUP International Women's Baseball Tournament in South Korea in 2017, softball doesn't register on her radar gun.
“It's not the game that I love,” said the senior, who intends to study music education at Illinois State — and tryout for USA Baseball's Women's National Team.
“I love the game of baseball and I never wanted to switch over to softball and I just never did. And I was never forced to, either,” she said.
That's a credit to a lot of people starting with her parents, Kirsten and Bob, and grandfather, William, who took Schoenke to her first White Sox game when she was around 4 months old.
Her presence doesn't raise eyebrows in the Glenbard East program. She's known Rams like Jeremy Johnson and Bret Bushka since kindergarten and has played with many of her teammates coming up through tee ball and Little League.
“It's been great, honestly,” Schoenke said. “I have had nothing but supportive coaches, coaches that don't treat me any different than any other player, which is all I can ask for. And the same thing with parents and players.”
“She's just a part of the team,” Pelland said.
During Glenbard East's spring training trip to Kentucky, opposing coaches asked Pelland if there was a girl on the team. Yes, there was.
“They were all like, 'That's awesome,'” he said.
(Glenbard East has to be on the cutting edge of girls playing traditionally boys sports. Pelland said pitcher-infielder Raquel Procopio is on the sophomore baseball team. On Sept. 11, 2015, Rebecca Deluca-Lane scored the first touchdown by a female in an IHSA varsity football game in a 56-12 win over East Aurora.)
A right-handed pitcher who also is among the Rams' first basemen, Schoenke has a two-seam fastball with movement, a circle changeup and a curveball she calls more the 12-6 variety than a sweeper.
On March 30 in Kentucky, Schoenke pitched 1⅓ innings of relief. On Friday at Wheaton Academy she got the start on the mound. Schoenke went 2⅓ innings and left the game with a 5-3 lead but got a no-decision after the Warriors tied it up that inning.
She said her pitch count mounted.
“I'm an outside corner pitcher and that (umpire) was not an outside corner guy, so I had a little trouble adjusting to that zone. The cookie crumbles that way sometimes,” Schoenke said.
On April 4 against West Chicago she got her first varsity hit, a single through the left side of the infield.
“I guess it was pretty cool, first hit on varsity. But yeah, to me, just another hit,” said Schoenke, also a clarinetist in the school orchestra and two-year drum major in marching band.
At about 10 years old she left Little League to play with the Outlaws Prep Baseball travel team until age 14. During that stint Schoenke said she was contacted by Justine Siegal, founder of the all-female Baseball for All program. Siegal recruited Schoenke to play in the first National Girls Baseball Tournament in Florida the summer before her freshman year, and she's played in that tournament ever since.
Baseball has taken her to California, Arizona, New York, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana and South Korea. This year the tournament will be held at the park of the Rockford Peaches, who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during its run from 1943-54.
Schoenke can relate — to the Peaches and the Rams.
“If I were to go back in time and kind of reincarnate myself I would go back and play baseball during World War II,” she said. “But at the same time I wouldn't change anything right now. I'm happy with my life and I'm very fortunate to be able to wake up every morning and go play baseball.”
doberhelman@dailyherald.com
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