Ivan Lendl Adaptive Sports Camp provides new opportunities to kids

It’s just like any summer day camp: there are games, activities and a chance to try something new. But that “new” thing could end up changing a life.

That’s every day at the Ivan Lendl Adaptive Sports Camp, put on by the Hospital for Special Care.

For more than 30 years, kids with different abilities have gotten the chance to try adaptive basketball, tennis, track and field. Over those decades, it’s been where future Paralympians have first tried their sports. But for former pro tennis player Ivan Lendl, “world-class athlete” isn’t the goal.

“I don't really care so much what the sport is as long as the kids get to be active in the sport,” Lendl said.

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Lendl, who has eight Grand Slam titles to his name, takes just as much pride in the camp that bears his name. When he visited the camp this year, he once again connected with the kid who started it all: Jonathan Slifka.

Slifka’s mom started the camp 33 years ago with the same purpose it has today: to give all kids a chance to try different sports and along the way, hopefully learn some even bigger lessons, too.

“When we look back at the track record of the counselors that we've had come through, many of them have been world-class athletes, they've been role models,” Slifka said. “Not just from an athletic standpoint but from a life skills and life standpoint. They're successful in their careers, they have an education, they are the very definition of independent, that's life-changing."