Paige Rightmire thought that she was in charge of directions. Her partner was blind, after all.
But on the front half of the tandem bicycle, Rightmire was lost. She had led them both onto Los Osos Valley Road, as cars whizzed past them.
As she panicked, her partner stayed calm and encouraged her.
“I was struggling and he was helping me through it, and I thought the entire time that I would be helping him through it,” Rightmire said. “He was so positive and was such an inspiring individual.”
The nine-mile ride helped her understand how much her partner could really see.
Rightmire was on the bike as part of Adapted Physical Activity (KINE 307). In the class, dozens of kinesiology students spend their time with community members with disabilities, playing sports or exercising with them.
Students choose their quarter-long lab from a variety of options ranging from kayaking with community members in Morro Bay to teaching sports to school-aged kids with disabilities.
It’s a rare service-based class at Cal Poly where students give back to the community.
But students said it changes their lives, too.
“I’m always bragging about [the class] at the end of the day,” said Alyssa Michaelis, a 2024 kinesiology alum. “It’s had such a positive impact on my life, and on how I view myself and others.”
It may not be the most technical or scientific course, but Darren Avrit, a professor in the Kinesiology and Public Health Department, said it is the most “transformational.”
“Students repeatedly say that of all our courses, it’s changed their outlook and philosophy on their tenure here—and really their life,” Avrit said. “They become richly aware of their surroundings and the people around them…this is an eye-opener for a lot of students.”
Avrit took the class himself as a kinesiology student in 1991. It has evolved substantially since then but remains a required course for all kinesiology students.
He says it benefits everyone, regardless of students’ future careers.
“We’re always going to be working with someone with a special need,” Avrit said. “It’s being able to identify, adapt and treat them just like you’d treat everyone else.”
“Everything ball” at the Bulldogs lab
Thursday night is Atascadero resident Katie Moore’s favorite night of the week.
Moore, 28, heads to the Colony Park Community Center for the Bulldogs lab, where students plan exercise routines and games for participants with disabilities from ages 14 to 60.
On a typical Thursday, students lead an activity like volleyball and teach basic techniques so participants can hold a scrimmage at the end.
“We do line dancing, basketball, volleyball, softball, broomball—everything ball,” Moore joked, grinning.
For many participants, it’s their only physical activity of the week.
“Everyone’s so excited when they walk into the gym,” Alyssa Michaelis said. “And we have a ball. We turn on the music, dance around a little bit… we make sure they’re benefitting from it as well as having fun.”
Moore, who has a learning disability, has been in Bulldogs since middle school. She’s met dozens of Cal Poly students who she says “grow and learn” throughout their quarter of volunteering.
“They seem kinder and know a little bit more about how to help with special needs people,” Moore said.
In middle school, Moore’s classmates ignored and outcasted her for being different. She said she sat alone at lunch for all of sixth grade.
But the Cal Poly students immediately accepted her at Bulldogs. She remembers “feeling loved” the first time her dad took her to the program.
“It’s amazing to have a place where you can escape the world,” Moore said. “When I’m really depressed, I go to Bulldogs and they put a smile on my face.”
She keeps coming back to help others smile, too.
“I don’t want anyone to feel the way I did,” Moore said. “Not wanted. Not listened to. Invisible. Like I did my entire life.”
Michaelis finished her Bulldogs lab two years ago. She still goes to the weekly meetings.
“I just ended up hanging out with some great friends every Thursday night,” Michaelis said.
Before the class, Michaelis rarely interacted with people with disabilities. And Bulldogs wasn’t her first choice—she expected to be like a “glorified P.E. teacher,” making up drills on the fly.
“I’m guilty of that,” she said. “I did not want to give up my Thursday nights.”
But Michaelis was shocked at how much she enjoyed the challenge of curating the program for such a wide age range.
She also had more in common with the athletes than she expected.
“People have this already made-up opinion about people with disabilities,” she said. “But they’re not any different than all of us. They want the same things, they want to push themselves and do well and be healthy.”
Some participants still text Michaelis if she ever misses a week.
Katie Moore is getting married later this year—and invited Michaelis to her wedding.
“They’re all my best friends,” Michaelis said about the Bulldogs participants. “They’ve all added to my life, and I thank [Professor] Avrit every day for that.”
“See them for who they are”
In the Eye-Cycle lab, students go tandem cycling with a community member who’s blind or visually impaired.
Kinesiology professor Christie O’Hara, the Eye Cycle coordinator, makes students meet their partners before going out on their first ride. Some duos do activities together like pottery at the ASI Craft Center, gardening and grocery shopping.
Building trust before the ride is important—some students have never ridden a bike before the quarter.
“It’s scary going with students who went from not knowing how to ride a bike to being able to trust them,” O’Hara said.
O’Hara trains students by having them close their eyes on the tandem bike. She says it builds up their confidence when they put someone else in that same position.
She used to make them wear full blindfolds.
“But that’s even scarier,” O’Hara said. “They freak out a little bit.”
Although not everyone has cycling experience, O’Hara said communication is by far the students’ biggest challenge—saying every command out loud when they think of something, from turning to breaking to shifting.
Not only that, but students have to cold-call their partners over the phone to set up a first meeting.
Kinesiology junior Paige Rightmire, who did Eye-Cycle last year, knows how scary that first call is.
O’Hara paired Rightmire, a Colorado native who grew up mountain biking, with an experienced tandem cyclist who once planned a ride across the U.S.
Rightmire said she felt nervous to meet her partner and didn’t know how to ask him about his disability.
But a classmate gave her some advice.
“She said, ‘Just ask him about himself,’” Rightmire said. “That kind of was an eye-opening moment for me, that this is just a person, just like anyone else.”
After their nine-mile ordeal on Los Osos Valley Road, they stuck to four and five-mile rides for the rest of the quarter.
Rightmire said the best part of the lab was getting to know her partner and looking past his disability.
“A main part of the class is seeing people not for what they can’t do, but what they can do,” Rightmire said. “You can find ways to do everything for every individual.”
Moving forward
Avrit will add two new labs to the class this spring: a movement program for adults with memory loss conditions like Alzheimer’s and an equine therapy lab for children with disabilities like autism and cerebral palsy.
In January, Avrit will share the blueprint for the class at the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education conference in Puerto Rico.
He hopes other communities can adopt the class’ service-based model.
“They want to hear about it, and we want to share it,” Avrit said.
Rightmire thinks every Cal Poly student should have to take Adapted Physical Activity.
“It’s so much more broad than just kinesiology,” Rightmire said. “Even if it wasn’t people with disabilities, there should just be more interaction with people from different backgrounds.”
Michaelis expected to get credit for her lab. She didn’t expect to make best friends.
“I don’t need to do this for a class anymore—my attendance doesn’t matter,” Michaelis said. “But in the end, it does matter to the athletes that I’m there because they’re all my friends now.”