Kids with special needs, local athletes team up for Playmakers event

Aberdeen Insider | Scott Waltman

A chance meeting in an Iowa motel lobby has led to a former California football coach helping Aberdeen area kids who have special needs.

And that’s why at least a couple hundred people, many who waited in bitter cold to get in, wound up at Allevity the morning of Saturday, Jan. 31.

Kids with special needs and their families enjoyed a couple of hours of playing arcade games, ski ball and spin zone bumper cars with members of the Central High School boys basketball team and other local high school athletes.

The free event was hosted by Playmakers, a nonprofit organization that aims to enhance the lives of all kids and families through inclusive sports, community service and lifelong relationships. The man who founded the group is Greg Roeszler.

Roeszler — Coach Roz — doesn’t put much stock in serendipity. Things happen for a reason, he said. But he had no plans to bump into Faulkton High School lineman Carson Leonhardt who, a few years back, was visiting Iowa for a football camp.

The two just happened to make reservations for the same night in the same place…