‘The best of humanity’: 16-year-old with cerebral palsy helps bring adaptive swimming to Southern Section

His life, 16-year-old Mateo Escovar said, can be one of suffering. And yet he smiles.

Every step is danger. Every step brings risk that his muscles will cave, his legs will crumple, and calculations constantly nag in the back of his mind to prepare for a fall. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy shortly after he was born; growing up has brought a never-ending string of therapies and surgeries, trying to correct a gait where his knees once rotated so far inward that his mother, Christina, described his legs looking like an X.

Yet he smiled Tuesday, bright and toothy, because he got to swim.

For years, the water has been Escovar’s element. Competitive swimming brought confidence, bolstered by joining his high school team this year at St. Monica Academy in Montrose, earning cheers and chants since his first meet of the season. In the pool, movement is no longer a risk. He can propel his body freely, on his terms, fear of falling replaced by sheer determination to reach the wall.

“It’s the only way I can not feel like I need to make a backup plan every time,” Escovar said of movement.

Escovar has cut his times by about 20 seconds since the year began. He was still seven seconds away from meeting the qualifying mark to compete in the adaptive heat of the state championships. So last week, Christina brought a question via email to Southern Section assistant commissioner Kristine Palle: was there any qualifying time that would enable her son to compete as a para-athlete at the section finals in early May?

The Southern Section didn’t have any such heats for swimming championships. But within days, Palle pieced together a new race that would take place across all divisions: a 50-meter freestyle “para-heat,” or what Commissioner Rob Wigod has informally dubbed the “inclusive” heat.

“When I told [Mateo] in the car on the way to swim practice, he had the biggest smile on his face I’ve ever seen,” Christina said. “And as a mom, who’s seen him struggle, the emotional highs and lows of having a disability, that was priceless.”

For the entire season — all his life, really — Escovar had been swimming against able-bodied athletes. It’d frustrate him. At the Division IV preliminaries on Tuesday, he entered the water with five other athletes with disabilities, the Southern Section beaming out interest surveys to every member school to find students who’d want to participate in the new heat.

Nearly 20 total competed in the inaugural adaptive Southern Section swimming preliminaries this week, with more slated for the inaugural finals this Friday and Saturday. Standing ovations abounded, and hardly a parent kept a dry eye.

“The best of humanity was on display,” Christina said.

Western Christian’s Jordan Wills, a senior with autism who had no competitive swimming experience before this season, found himself the winner of the Division IV heat and the fastest swimmer of any para-athlete in the preliminaries with a time of 33:47. Couldn’t believe it, coach Mario Eguez said.

“Jordan,” Eguez said he told Wills, “look, you might hold the record for a while!”

La Quinta sophomore Charlie Graves, who has autism, set a personal best with a time of 47.9. He’s found a love and routine in swimming. After every meet, he’ll grab a post-race bite to eat at Del Taco, then tell his dogs while on a walk the next day how he’d swam.

When coach Stephanie Henderson told Graves he’d be able to compete in the sectional finals, he was “pumped,” she said, uttering the same phrase he’d told her before every meet this year:

“It all comes down to this.”

In the midst of the excitement created from the race he helped inaugurate, Escovar’s time dropped slightly. Wasn’t his best. But he sat smiling on the car ride home Tuesday with the knowledge that he’d done something bigger than himself. And he’ll have another chance to race in the finals Saturday.

In St. Monica’s second swim meet of the year, the pool deck was slick with rain, and Escovar fell when he pulled himself out of the water. Maybe he slipped; maybe the muscles in his leg gave out again. Either way, he banged his toe so hard it started bleeding.

Coach Darrell Brash asked him if his leg hurt.

“Mr. Brash,” Escovar said, “I can’t feel my legs. I’m fine.”

He turned around, and got ready to swim the next relay.