By Sean McDevitt, FightingIllini.com

It all started with an Illinois polo shirt.

For Kevin Ramirez and Cody Trigg, it was a mutual love of Illinois athletics that brought them together. This educator-student relationship has made a difference at a Springfield, Illinois school a difference that can't even be measured yet.

Teaching Tool

Cody Trigg, an assistant principal and athletic director at Springfield Lanphier High School, in his first year in the roles, noticed one of his students. Kevin Ramirez caught his eye and the new assistant principal quickly learned all about one of his students.

"Kevin is one of our life skills students," said Trigg. "You tend to keep a closer eye on your life skills students, especially in a big setting like lunch, just because you want to make sure everything's okay and make sure that they don't get lost in the shuffle. But, Kevin was the exact opposite, he was the shuffle."

Ramirez is a nonverbal student due to cerebral palsy. He communicates with a tablet and works with his teachers on speech therapy.

"He goes up and he hugs or gives a fist pound to everybody that's ever said hello to him," Trigg said. "Our relationship took off when I wore an Illini polo to school one day. He had just gone to the Rutgers - Illinois basketball game, the one that went to overtime last year. And because I wore that polo the same week, we became thick as thieves."

Kevin's mother, Gladys, remembers that first Illinois basketball game fondly. 

"He was so excited to go and he needed a whole outfit. I was just going to get him a T-shirt, but he wanted everything," Ms. Ramirez said. "And that's all it took. Just one game and that's his team. Every day he looks at the newspaper to see what's going on and then he goes to school and talks with Mr. Trigg about it."

Trigg has exposed Ramirez to all of Illinois athletics using stats and videos to engage him. It has become their morning ritual.

"We try to talk sports every morning," said Trigg. "I see that as an opportunity to connect with him and use it as a teaching tool for him to work on becoming more verbal. Whenever we talk sports we always just talk, I don't let him use his tablet, just so we can work on those verbal skills.

"A lot of our students see Kevin as not a life skills kid, but just a kid that has a challenge that he's working on overcoming. He's 15 years old, and he's just now starting to develop words. And we think a lot of that comes from when we talk to him just like any other student."

"We had a doctor's appointment to see a specialist in St. Louis and they asked him how he was doing and the first thing out of his mouth was how he was going to go see the Illini," Ms. Ramirez said. "I had never seen him so excited about anything before. The doctors tell us they're never going to say he'll never talk because he's proven them wrong so many times. He tries to be verbal, but it's a challenge. He's working on it.

Courage Through Caring

Kevin's outgoing nature is spreading to some of his classmates in the life skills classroom.

"Kevin's got one friend named David that was kind of shy, kind of meek," said Trigg. "One day David walked up while we were looking at basketball videos, and he just started hanging around. You could tell, at first he was nervous, and then he slowly started putting himself in conversations and giving fist bumps like Kev does, and Kevin will never know what he did for that kid."

Gladys Ramirez said she really didn't know Mr. Trigg very well, but what she's seen he's an all-star in her book.

"You don't see very many (teachers) take an interest in the kids and especially the special needs kids. He opened up a whole new world for Kevin."

Trigg sees the impact Kevin has had with the whole school and him personally.

"It's courage through caring for Kevin," Trigg said. "I think Kevin's teaching more to us than we are teaching Kevin."