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Dustin Luca
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SALEM, MASS. – The Rolling Patriots Wheelchair Football Experience comes to campus this Wednesday, providing students in Salem State University’s Maguire Meservey College of Health and Human Services a powerful introduction to the world of adaptive sports and recreation.
The Rolling Patriots will take over Rockett Arena at the O’Keefe Sports Complex on Canal Street Wednesday, March 25 from 5 to 7 pm for an event titled The Mental Health Impact of Adaptive Sports: Professional Wheelchair Football Experience with the Rolling Patriots. The event will provide students from multiple disciplines at Salem State with the opportunity to learn about the mental, physical and social impacts of adaptive sports.
“For students entering healthcare professions, this hands-on experience working with professional athletes on adaptive leisure and recreation will give them valuable perspective on the clients they’ll serve,” said Jeramie Silveira, chairperson of the occupational therapy department at Salem State. “It gives them a much broader scope of the medical model and what’s meaningful for clients.”
The event is run in collaboration with Spaulding Adaptive Sports Centers, which offers adaptive sports and rehabilitation programs in Boston, Cape Cod and the North Shore. It is part of the Spring 2026 Interprofessional Event Series, which hosts events throughout March and April that offer case simulations, interprofessional clinical experiences and panels focusing on health disparities, public health programming and policy and more.
“This is sports equity education, giving all levels of ability the opportunity to participate and learn about adaptive sports,” said Jennifer Packard, an outpatient advanced clinician with Spaulding. “We’ll divide up into small groups with a professional athlete and adaptive sports person in each group and talk about the injuries with that particular sport, how we adapt, how the adaptive sport is growing, and what competition looks like.”
The event will also feature drills with adaptive sports equipment, after which attendees are broken into two teams that will play a scrimmage session using adaptive equipment.
"We are incredibly grateful for our partnership with Spaulding Adaptive Sports,” said Silveira. “Their unwavering commitment to making sports participation accessible to everyone has had a profound impact on Salem State and the surrounding community. We look forward to continuing to grow this partnership.”
For more on Spaulding Adaptive Sports Centers, please visit sasc.spauldingrehab.org.