Common Ground Outdoor Adventures is a nonprofit organization in Logan that provides outdoor recreational activities to youth and adults with disabilities.
The organization enables individuals to participate in outdoor activities by providing adaptive equipment and support.
“By crossing perceived limitations individuals gain self-confidence, which carries over into the quest for meaningful employment, the pursuit of relationships, and active participation in community life,” the CGOA website states.
CGOA has various employees as well as local volunteers who are involved with the organization.
Anna Turner is the outreach and engagement coordinator at CGOA.
According to Turner, CGOA started in 1993 as a local branch nested under the Move United group, which is a national nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of parasports.
“Most of our activities are tailored towards individuals with disabilities because our goal is to help them get the boost they need to be able to participate in sports at the level that they want to,” Turner said.
The vision statement on the CGOA website states, “We want to do all we can to remove barriers and enhance people’s lives through recreational experiences, while reducing the stereotypes society has about people with disabilities.”
Turner said they have a group of about 30 core participants who regularly attend all of their activities.
She said their most common activities are rock climb -
ing, ice skating, snowshoeing, skiing, cycling, whitewater rafting, dog sledding, camping and hiking.
“I guess really, if it’s a sport, we probably do it at some point during the year,” Turner said.
One of CGOA’s upcoming activities is their wheelchair basketball game on April 4 from 6:30-9 p.m. at Grand Canyon High School.
This is a free event anyone is welcome to come and support.
While most of the activities take place outdoors, CGOA has two physical offices, one in Logan and the other at Beaver Mountain.
“The Beaver Mountain program primarily hosts our ski program. We offer ski lessons and snowboarding lessons to individuals with disabilities who are interested in those sports,” Turner said.
She said the Beaver office hosts day camps during the summer which includes similar events they would do in the Logan office.
“It really transitions every year — we try to come up with new activities as much as possible,” Turner said.
CGOA is always seeking help from local volunteers, especially any Utah State University students who are interested in helping out.
Turner said they always need help at the Beaver Mountain office, so if there are any students who are interested in skiing or snowboarding, there is an opportunity for them to get involved.
“We send out a monthly volunteer email that includes all of the activities that month that we still need volunteers for, and so if there are students who are interested in volunteering, they can contact us and we can put them on our contact list,” she said.
Those interested can contact CGOA through the volunteer page on their website
Volunteering with CGOA is a great opportunity for students to gain experience working for a nonprofit.
“If there are students wanting to work in maybe social work or in other minority communities or in nonprofit work, this is a great opportunity for them to step in and see what that’s like, by involving themselves in an organization that serves those communities,” Turner said.
Additionally, Turner touched on the happiness that comes from volunteering in this capacity.
“I have also seen a large mental health boost in a lot of our volunteers because being around our participants, it’s just a really fun time and they are just always smiling and laughing. It’s hard to be sad when you’re in a group with all of us,” she said.
Because Common Ground is a small local organization, they rely on their volunteers.
“So anybody who’s willing to volunteer with us regularly, we start to rely on you like family and we call you up when we need you,” Turner said.
Students who volunteer for CGOA will gain exposure to the other organizations CGOA works with.
“We work with a lot of different groups including special education programs around the valley, veteran programs and just the general disability populace,” Turner said. “We partner with the Cache Valley Veterans Association pretty regularly, so if there are any students who either have direct family ties and want to be more involved with them, or any veterans on campus, that’s an awesome organization that we work with pretty regularly as well.”
— kate.stewart@usu.edu
PHOTO BY Paige Johnson
Leah Dunagan: There for USU Men’s Basketball
By Jake Ellis
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Utah State Men’s Basketball players get hurt, Leah Dunagan is there to help. She’s the team’s athletic trainer and manages everything from in-game injuries to pre and post-game treatments for the athletes.
She has come to the rescue with head injuries and bloody lacerations on the court. Dunagan is the calming presence when things have gone terribly wrong.
“In order for the athlete to stay calm, you have to stay calm because if I panic, then they're going to panic and so keeping calm keeps them calm,” Dunagan said. “You're kind of taught how to manage emergency crisis in school... granted, you don't really know how you're going to react until it happens, but adrenaline kind of kicks.”
On top of that, she’s excelling in a male-dominated industry. Dunagan is one of four athletic trainers that work on a men’s basketball team that made the NCAA Tournament, per an email she received. She called that fact “pretty crazy.”
“It's crazy cause I never thought that I would have worked with a men's basketball team,” Dunagan said. “It was never an aspiration of mine, but now that I have done this it's — I don't think that I would want to work another sport.”
But even though she supports a male team with a pri-
marily male coaching and support staff, she “holds her ground,” Bairstow said.
“Everyone respects her and likes her a lot, and she fts in really well,” Bairstow said. “Really, really loved, and everyone’s happy to have her.”
It’s something Dunagan knew she would have to do as an athletic trainer.
“You know, you just got to stand your ground,” Dunagan said. “There's really no intimidation factor really at all. The profession and athletic training is also pretty male dominant, and so it kind of comes with the territory.”
Originally, Dunagan came to Utah State to support the gymnastics team. After working with them for three years and then the softball team for two years she was promoted to men’s basketball.
Now she’s best known for the fact that she assists a seven-footer in center Trevin Dorius.
“Everybody gets obviously a laugh out of it,” Dunagan said. “I'll either tell him to take a seat or I'll stand on something or whatnot, but we all make jokes about it.”
Dunagan also has to be prepared for anything and everything, such as when guard Sean Bairstow suffered a fnger injury that took him out of a game during the 2021-22 season. Dunagan helped him recover from that as well as a wrist injury.
“I feel like the main thing is just like the effort that she puts forward,” Bairstow said. “She's there so many hours of the day and has so many different availabilities... and the care factor that she has for us.”
Rehabbing an athlete isn’t always easy. Dunagan said sometimes it takes a bit for the player to buy into the rehab process but they usually change their tune when they see results.
“But once that buy-in is in and they see the process work then they're usually completely bought in,” Dunagan said.
At the end of the day, win or loss, Dunagan knows she’s helped her student-athletes.
“It is incredibly rewarding,” Dunagan said. “It's nice to see an athlete go from — obviously it‘s not nice to see the athlete they get injured — but when they are injured and watching them go through the whole recovery process and rehab process and getting backed to on the court, it’s incredible.”
She added that it has been “an honor to be able to work” with this year’s Aggie
basketball team.
“Never doubted any of their hard work whatsoever,” Dunagan said. “They have never swayed in any kind of way. Their attitude has always been to keep pushing. They never looked back, so they knew that they were a tournament team and so did all of the support staff, the coaching staff, everybody. And to see all the hard work that they put forth to see it payoff has been incredible.”
And for other women that aspire to become athletic trainers, Dunagan says “to follow your dreams.”
“It is an incredibly rewarding profession,” Dunagan said. “Stick to your guns. It's a lot of fun.”
PHOTO BY Phil Weber
Utah State Men’s Basketball poses for a picture during their shootaround at the NCAA Tournament on March 15.
PHOTO BY Phil Weber
Athletic trainer Leah Dunagan hands guard Sean Bairstow a bottle during Utah State Men’s Basketball’s shootaround at the NCAA Tournament on March 15.
MBB: Kobe Brown, Missouri take down USU in first round of March Madness
By Jake Ellis SPORTS EDITOR
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After trading blows through the frst 10 minutes after halftime, Missouri’s Kobe Brown took over to knock Utah State Men’s Basketball out of the NCAA Tournament 76-65.
Brown went off for 12-straight Tiger points, including three 3-pointers, in just over three minutes midway through the second half. His boost got Mizzou up by six points, 59-53.
“Brown was tremendous,” said USU head coach Ryan Odom. “Two really diffcult threes. Obviously the frst two going to the basket. I mean, he's a load.”
From there, Tiger guard D’Moi Hodge poured in eight points to put Missouri up by double digits, 67-56, with three-and-a-half minutes left.
During that same stretch of time, the Aggies struggled to keep the ball secure, turning it over four times. Utah State was also having trouble drawing fouls from the contact they perceived.
When USU wasn’t getting the calls they wanted, the frustration boiled over and the Aggie bench picked up a technical foul. Missouri missed both shots but hit a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession. Utah State just could not stop the sharp-shooting Tigers, who hit fve 3-pointers, including a couple of well-guarded ones, to blow the Aggies out of the Golden 1 Center.
That was after a grueling frst half where the Tigers forced the Aggies off the perimeter and into the paint. It was Missouri’s game plan to take away the three and force USU into tough shots.
“We tried to force them to the basket to make them make two, make the big man score,” Hodge said. “Make them take tough threes, force them into bad shots. That helped us in the long run.”
Utah State outscored Missouri 46-26 in the paint, but that’s not how the Aggies are built to win.
“You got to understand at that point that's not how they want to score, that's not how they want the entire game to go,” said Missouri head coach Dennis Gates. “Our guys commend them. It's hard to give up layups or different things, but they stayed disciplined and they did not overrotate, which is one of the game plans we saw being used throughout their conference.”
USU guard Steven Ashworth credited the Tigers’ defense and bad luck to the Aggies’ struggle from the perimeter.
“There has to be some credit given to Missouri, their style of defense, what they like to do to teams,” Ashworth said. “At times, even if you're getting open looks in those situations, you can be a little rushed into those shots. I think the frst half we had a little bit of that. At the same time, it was we just weren't hitting the shots we normally make. I know even some of them were just bad beats.”
Ashworth cited a triple from Funk that went in but was taken off the board when the offcials said he stepped on the line out of bounds.
“That could have been the one to open it up in the frst half,” Ashworth said.
Instead, the Aggies ended the frst half without a 3-pointer made on 11 shots. Utah State turned it around a little in the second half with four made triples, but fnished the game shooting 16.7% from beyond the arc.
However, USU didn’t take their blows lying down. During their climb back early in the second half, forward Taylor Funk hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 39 four-anda-half minutes into the half and then a layup to tie it again on the next possession, but Missouri always had an answer.
“I think our philosophy is not blinking,” Gates said. “We didn't blink no matter what the crowd noise was, no matter what the response or the plays that Utah State made.”
The Tigers responded with a 3-pointer from Hodge and a jump shot from Sean East II.
Later on, forward Dan Akin threw down two monster slams. But that provoked Brown to respond with his 12-point stretch.
“Immediately after he got those two dunks, after each one I was just telling my team, it's just two points,” Brown said. “We got to get back, keep playing. Like getting two regular layups to us. Like he said, we don't blink. We felt them getting the momentum, but we couldn't show that. If we would have showed that, things would have went a lot different.”
Funk led USU with 16 points. Ashworth and Akin added 12 points each.
Utah State ends the season with a record of 26-9. The loss is the Aggies’ 10th straight loss in the NCAA Tournament and ninth straight frst-round exit.
Jake Ellis is a senior majoring in journalism. When he’s not covering the Aggies, Jake enjoys reading news coverage about Missouri’s mascot Truman the Tiger.
— jacob.ellis@usu.edu @jakeellisonair
PHOTO BY Phil Weber
Missouri celebrates behind USU’s RJ Eytle-Rock and Dan Akin durring the NCAA Tournament game on March 16.
PHOTO BY Phil Weber Missouri’s Kobe Brown celebrates making a 3-pointer during the NCAA Tournament game on March 16.
Along with the other events WIBA holds throughout the year, the club also focuses on service. They held an event this year to raise money for the Student Nutrition Access Center on campus.
They also reached out to a young women’s leadership organization at the Edith Bowen Laboratory School. Members of WIBA were able to share with the girls things they have learned and help empower them.
“We want to start them having the idea in their mind early, because a lot of what we try and overcome is these preconceived notions that they've been raised with, maybe they are supposed to stay in Utah, and be a certain way or whatever,” Johns-Andruk said. “You can pretty much do anything you want. And the core of all of that is to get a great education and to get your degree, and then go explore and live life to its fullest, and be an asset to your family, to your community and to the world.”
Ravsten said she has worked to make WIBA a club where everyone has a place and wherem they can learn they are valuable.
“Everyone has something important to say and to bring to the table,” Ravsten said. “There's something so powerful and having a diverse perspective on things, because one person may have been raised one way and had this outlook on life and someone else will have a different opinion on things, and being able to create a space where you can work and talk with those people.”
Caitlin Keith is from Utah and is currently a junior studying journalism.
Other than writing, she enjoys watching and ranting about tv shows or sports, speaking German and eating snacks.
