Southern Illinois nonprofit NubAbility Athletics hosts All-Sports Camp

DU QUOIN, Ill. (KFVS) - Every year in the middle of July, Du Quoin becomes a nationwide, even worldwide hub for NubAbility’s All-Sports Camp.

The camp caters to limb-different youth, with more than a dozen sports featured over several days, from archery to lacrosse and even water skiing.

At the head of the operation is Sam Kuhnert.

Kuhnert, from Du Quoin, has only one fully formed hand. Despite that, Kuhnert played varsity football and baseball for the Indians, going on to play baseball collegiately.

It was toward the end of his playing career that Kuhnert realized what he was meant to do in life.

“This vision popped in my head of a camp where kids with limb differences and amputees would come together and they’d get to learn from a mentor who looks like them, how to compete in mainstream organized sports, but more importantly, how to get through life,” Kuhnert said.

Seeing other kids not being given the opportunity to succeed or even compete at all, spurred him forward.

“When I saw these parents not allowing their kids to be subjected to every sport, it really didn’t sit well with me,” Kuhnert said. “So I pulled in the big guns, I said ‘Momma, get these parents away for me and just let me work with these kids.’ I taught them how to throw and catch a baseball, how to shoot and dribble a basketball, how to throw and catch a football.”

Fast-forward, NubAbility’s a decade and a half old. And the camp’s impact is greater than it’s ever been, with hundreds of campers and families attending each July, along with 80 coaches.

Every single coach at NubAbility has a limb difference of some sort. That’s by design.

Kuhnbert pointed to an example of a child’s first baseball practice, noting that a kid with a limb difference is immediately singled out.

In a camp like NubAbility’s, that’s not the case. Because everyone there has something that they’ve had to overcome. And every coach has played varsity, collegiately or even professionally.

“You can definitely see that some of them are very shy, very anxious” Kellie Fuller, the camp’s competitive cheerleading coach said. “They’re a little worried about ‘Hey, how am I going to do this? I don’t think coach understands what I’m going through’ And in reality, we really do. We totally get it. I know that exact same fear and that anxiety, having to learn things in my own way.”

Another coach, Calder Hodge spoke on his experience. Hodge had double amputation above the knee at just 2.

Despite that, he currently plays college football, and he’s back helping for his third year at NubAbility, after previously being a camper.

“I just want to be a huge impact on their lives as well, just like they are on mine,” Hodge said on the campers. “I want to bust my butt every single day so that I can give them an opportunity to do what I’m doing.”

NubAbility’s helped send 22 athletes into college and professional sports. But they’ve done even more than that.

“We have doctors, we have surgeons, we have chiropractors, we have PA’s, we have EMT’s” Kuhnert said. “We have people who are going out there right now and saving lives when they were told they couldn’t, unless they had two hands or two feet. And now they’re out there not only saving lives, but thriving in life.”