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Olivia Stewart Lester first met Aidan Crawford (BS ’26), the senior goalkeeper on Loyola University Chicago’s men’s soccer team, in her New Testament course in spring 2023. From the moment Crawford set foot in the classroom, she recognized that he was exceptionally bright and motivated. In an interpretive analysis of John 9:13-34, a Gospel story in which Jesus famously gives sight to a blind man, the molecular and cellular neuroscience major made a poignant observation: blindness, from a modern disability studies lens, doesn’t signify a lack of insight. In fact, it can mean just the opposite.
“He wrote a really strong paper, did great in the course, and then he approached me in fall 2024 and said that he wanted to start a chapter of the Special Olympics at Loyola,” says Stewart Lester, an associate professor of New Testament and early Christianity who became his faculty advisor. “And I was delighted to do that.”
Today, Special Olympics LUC, founded by Crawford in 2024 and named Loyola’s Outstanding New Organization of the Year in 2025, has grown from five Loyola students to include 129 active members. The student-led organization partners with Misericordia, a Rogers Park residential community for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, to support residents by assisting with sports practices and sensory activities.
Volunteers visit Misericordia weekly to help high-functioning residents—some using walkers and wheelchairs—hone their skills in sports such as basketball, track and field, and bowling. They also work with participants who have profound intellectual disabilities, supporting their sensory processing and movement development through a formalized Special Olympics Motor Activity Training Program.
“We only see a very small portion of their day, and our hope is to make that portion happy and provide special memories because it’s important,” says Evelyn Wilke (BA ’26), the Special Olympics LUC outreach coordinator. “The residents really love seeing us come, and we’re able to form really strong relationships with the athletes.”
Many organized events reach into the broader community. The group has hosted Misericordia residents at Ramblers basketball games, created cards and banners to support athletes at regional Special Olympics Illinois competitions, and participated in statewide social media engagement challenges.
For Crawford, whose younger sister Katia Crawford is a Special Olympics athlete with Down syndrome, founding the student organization at Loyola—a University committed to service and located in Chicago where the first Special Olympics International Games were held at Soldier Field in 1968—made intuitive sense, and his efforts have not gone unnoticed. The student organization has earned state and national acclaim, including representing Special Olympics Illinois on a float in Chicago’s 2024 Wintrust Magnificent Mile Lights Festival and Parade and receiving a top 20 national ranking from Special Olympics North America.
“Once I got to college, it was a continued passion of mine to support Special Olympics, and I think that’s the case for so many other people who have siblings with disabilities and want to continue to support disability justice after they leave home,” Crawford said.
In recognition of the organization’s efforts, Crawford was named captain of the inaugural Allstate National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Good Works Team. Selected from colleges across the country, the 20 student-athlete honorees were chosen for outstanding leadership and service efforts addressing causes ranging from pediatric cancer care to disability inclusion, to food and housing insecurity.
“This team represents the best of what student athletes can achieve beyond their sport,” said ESPN reporter Holly Rowe, who announced the news at Loyola’s August 2025 soccer match against Purdue Fort Wayne. “These student-athletes are transforming their communities through genuine service and leadership, spotlighting college athletics at its most powerful and purposeful form.”
These student-athletes are transforming their communities through genuine service and leadership, spotlighting college athletics at its most powerful and purposeful form.
— Holly Rowe, ESPN reporter
Back in the classroom, Crawford is investigating how disability sports can better serve athletes with varying abilities. Supported by a John Grant Fellowship for bioethics research, he has worked closely with Amy Bohnert, a Loyola professor of clinical and developmental psychology, on a comparative research study exploring the psychological and health effects of three Para sport models (athletic programs for individuals with physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities) active in Chicago. His research, presented at the Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium in April 2025, is currently under review for publication in the Journal of Sport for Development.
Asked to describe what his study suggests about disability sport policy and programs, Crawford asserts that the most successful Para sport organizations appear to be those “with athletes in leadership positions, who give voice to the athletes themselves.”
“Something that the Special Olympics is starting to try to do,” he added, “is unified sports where they have athletes with disabilities and athletes without disabilities competing together in the same sport. And I think that’s something a lot of programs can try to include in their program design.”
Somewhat miraculously, Crawford has pursued all these efforts, along with service on the Special Olympics College Inclusion Board, while minding the net for Loyola University Chicago’s men’s soccer team.
As the starting goalkeeper for the past three seasons, he’s racked up some impressive accolades, including Atlantic 10 Goalkeeper of the Year and All-Atlantic 10 First Team in 2023. This year, injuries kept him sidelined for much of the season. Crawford played in just seven matches, posting a 1-3-3 record.
The setback, however, has not shaken his confidence, nor his outsized ambition. Crawford is unsure whether he will play soccer next fall or continue to pursue the disability research he began with Bohnert in Loyola’s Activity Matters Lab. Either way, he is committed to applying to medical school in 2027. Having excelled academically and interned as a medical assistant at the Illinois Bone & Joint Institute, he is well on his way to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor.
“Goalkeeping can be exhilarating, but in some games you can feel defeated, not just score-wise, but mentally defeated,” he said. “And I’ve come to learn to base my worth on my character and not the outcomes. And I think that’s only helped me in school and in my soccer performance as well.”
