By picking GCU, Zaborowski became rare DI signee with ASD
By: Paul Coro
Ryland Zaborowski was the 2-year-old toddler who watched baseballs roll by his field-side spot at Angel Stadium batting practice and blurted, "Ball, Daddy, ball, Daddy …" continuously until his father, Jeff, lowered him upside-down by one leg to snag a ball like an arcade claw grabs a toy.
Zaborowski was the growing boy whose endless zeal for baseball motivated his mom, Wendy, to furnish their home with distressed furniture so the damage from indoor toy baseball games looked natural.
When life turned more challenging with emotional meltdowns, school bullying and a learning labyrinth, Zaborowski was the budding baseball star with a bat and glove as his salvation. Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and backed by dedicated parents, Zaborowski annually dispelled presumptions that he could not be educated in mainstream classrooms and could not play baseball in college until a groundbreaking day in November.
The hard-hitting, honor-rolling 17-year-old signed to play baseball for Grand Canyon, becoming one of the first high school seniors with ASD to sign a Division I national letter of intent for a team sport – and possibly making GCU's Andy Stankiewicz the first-ever Division I head coach to sign a high school player on the spectrum.
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Jeff, Ryland and Wendy Zaborowski
"I've been looking forward to next year since I committed," said Zaborowski, who is ranked as high as No. 2 among Arizona prep prospects. "I want to be around guys who respect me and treat me like a brother. I want to play for Coach Stankiewicz. I want to play at a higher level. I want to find out what it's like to play in front of thousands of fans, get experience, travel the country, play all these teams and get that feeling of what it's really like to live on my own."
 'Good luck having a normal life'
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Zaborowski and GCU seem like such a natural fit now.
His talent belongs with a successful program, especially after "Zabo" hit .727 with four home runs and four doubles in seven games for his shortened senior season at Chandler (Ariz.) Basha High School. At 6 feet 6 and 215 pounds and with versatility to play first base, third base or outfield, Zaborowski was recruited by Power Five programs but none were as welcoming to his strengths and as attentive to his challenges as GCU.
Lopes athletic department employees have undergone training to make GCU Ballpark and other facilities "sensory inclusive" for next school year. The university offers an inclusive campus culture and ASD Connection, a program that assists students on the spectrum in every lane of campus life.
The "heartfelt" approach made Zaborowski's choice a relief for his parents, who nearly buried themselves in a financial hole of legal bills and other sacrifices for years to put him in position for success.
"We had teachers and administrators in California flat-out tell us to our faces that Ryland would never amount to anything, that he would always be in an autism class, he would never be mainstreamed and good luck having a normal life," Jeff said of Ryland, who has a 3.52 GPA.
Ryland was a typical toddler until he was 3, when extreme behavioral changes led to an initial diagnosis of anxiety before further testing settled on ASD. One of every 54 children have a form of ASD with boys being five times as likely as girls to be on the spectrum. With autism, every case carries distinct complexities that require unique approaches for brain development.
"Any time something didn't go according to plan, with his perfectionist ways, he would just melt down," Wendy said. "There would be times he would melt down and we wouldn't know why. Our goal was just to keep him safe during that time. In one of the initial meltdowns, we had to restrain him and take turns when he was 4 or 5. The meltdown went for hours. I thought, 'Oh my gosh, 'Is this what our life is going to consist of? He's going to keep growing and we're not.' "
 'Such a different person'
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Ryland attended third- through sixth-grade classes at the UC Irvine Child Development Center, a behavioral intervention school. He made progress but it was difficult to find coaches who would adhere to the practices that needed to be carried over to the field.
Baseball was his element. He thrived and played above his age level.
"His exterior didn't show any disability," Wendy said. "It was all interior. That was hard. We felt like, if we didn't have baseball, we didn't know what life would look like. He was such a different person the moment he stepped on the grass."
The Zaborowskis lost friendships over accusations of using his disorder to align him with better teams or coaches. The battle was more costly, emotionally and financial, with his education as their battles to get him into mainstream public education took thousands of dollars in attorneys and endless meetings.
They decided to move to Chandler in 2014 after a meeting with Santan Junior High School teacher Amy Stahl, who agreed that Ryland should be in mainstream education.
That did not make it easier on Ryland when classmates did not understand his hypersensitivities, even though he did not exhibit flapping or other nonverbal characteristics.
"Why do you do that?"
"You're annoying."
"Knock it off."
Ryland asked several questions after a teacher lectured or a coach gave instructions. A multi-step math problem was excruciating for his painstaking ways. He was apt to not share about his ASD because junior high classmates made fun of it with others.
 'What he lives for'
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Lack of understanding in middle school turned to immaturity in high school until his sophomore year, when he was promoted to the Basha varsity baseball team and joined a group of seniors who embraced his ways and looked out for him.
"I saw kids being jerks to him and that upset me," said Jake Jarvis, a GCU sophomore outfielder who was a Basha senior when Ryland joined varsity. "I made sure to look out for him because he has really good parents and I got close to them. I look at him as a younger brother. Anything I could do for him, I was there to do.
"When he's on the field, he's got his game face on. Nothing distracts him from the game. Baseball is what he lives for and I can tell he's really happy out there doing what he loves. All that other stuff is pushed to the side."
Emulating hero Mike Trout's cool demeanor as a three-time Most Valuable Player for the Los Angeles Angels, Ryland hit .312 for the rest of that varsity season and committed to GCU before his junior season, when he hit .414 and showed a powerful bat and strong throwing arm.
He went 0 for 2 in this season's opener, made a swing tweak and went 14 for 20 until the COVID-19 outbreak ended the season.
"I saw every pitch like it was a beach ball," Ryland said.
He stuck with his commitment to GCU, citing the on-campus GCU Ballpark, the modern campus look, fellow Phoenix-area recruits, Stankiewicz's infield defense knowledge and assistant coach Gregg Wallis' relationship as reasons.
"We really feel he could've gone to any program in the country because of his talent," Jeff said. "Coach Stankiewicz and Coach Wallis didn't shy away from his issues. They wanted to learn more, along with (Interim Vice President of Athletics) Jamie Boggs and the athletic department. We got a sense from other schools that they were leery and had concerns."
Stankiewicz said, "We met him and his family and they're just great people, which is a big part of it when you're recruiting. We understood about him being on the spectrum and saw that he was doing well. We have players from Basha who said he's a great young man and works hard. All those boxes you check during recruiting, he checked them all. He's not shying away from who he is so we'll do it together."
 'I'm very proud'
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Ryland has the memory of a hard drive. Last month, his family visited their old Rancho Santa Margarita, California, neighborhood and he was overwhelmed with flashbacks of in-house games, playing catch and Wiffleball, scraped knees in the street and his first Little League games at a nearby park.
All of it was baseball, the haven that always calmed him, built his self-confidence and formed friendships easier.
That is how he sees GCU, where he can have a contained experience of living, learning and playing for his preferences of routine. GCU associate director of student-athlete development Carly LaBombard presented a comprehensive academic approach and the Lopes showed they form a band of brothers who work out, eat and study together outside of practices and games.
Last fall, Kent State's Kalin Bennett was believed to the first Division I basketball player to have ASD and sign out of high school. Also on the spectrum, Justin Hansen finished his Colorado State football career in 2015 as a starting defensive lineman.
Zaborowski already has overcome and achieved at a high level to be a GCU signee but Stankiewicz foresees an instant impact next spring.
By then, he will be more accustomed to explaining, "I can't control it sometimes," to new acquaintances. By then, it will be a year after he first bravely shared his ASD publicly.
"I'm very proud of what I've done," Ryland said. "Growing up, I had no idea about all of this. It just makes me want to work even harder, just go do my thing become better doing it and let everyone see that I'm doing this pretty successfully."
Baseball was his element. He thrived and played above his age level.
