Merrick’s Scott Weisbrot to compete in first international Para Hockey World Cup games for field hockey

Scott Weisbrot has never let his autism get in the way.

Weisbrot, 28, of Merrick, competes in a plethora of sports, including bowling, surfing, horseback riding and hockey. When the floor hockey league he played in couldn’t keep enough players for games, his mother, Jane Weisbrot, found the next best thing: field hockey.

Later this month, Weisbrot will travel to Belgium to represent Team USA in International Field Hockey’s first-ever Para Hockey World Cup games from Aug. 20 to 24. He was the first player drafted to the team.

Weisbrot joined the Long Island All Starz, a field hockey team for people with intellectual disabilities, in 2021, and still plays for the team, which is based in Hauppauge. It is coached by Alexa Bracco, who founded the All Starz in 2021.

She said she founded the program, in some ways, by accident.

“I volunteered at a camp on Long Island called Camp HorseAbility,” she said. She posted a video to Instagram of herself coaching a camper in field hockey at the Old Westbury camp. USA Field Hockey, the national governing body for the sport, which she tagged in the post, reached out to her.

Bracco, 34, who is an operating room nurse at a hospital in Suffolk County, played field hockey in high school at Smithtown West and at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, but she never saw herself coaching the sport.

When Weisbrot joined her All Starz team, he became a valued team member. “Scott is hysterical; I love him,” Bracco said. “He’s got a sense of humor. He’s always bringing athletes up, pushing other athletes to do better.”

The All Starz program became a nonprofit in 2022. The next year, it was the first recipient of the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) DEI Spotlight recognition award.

According to the All Starz website, there currently are four active All Starz programs: one in New York, two in Pennsylvania and one in Maryland. It also is looking to expand to Tennessee, Michigan, Missouri, Massachusetts and California.

As the program grew, Bracco and USA Field Hockey began to push for an international tournament. “I wanted this, but I never could’ve foreseen that we’d be here,“ she said. “This was not on my radar, but as the program grew, I was so eager that we could take it to the next level.“

Last year, USA Field Hockey put in a bid with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) to make the new field hockey tournament a reality. In February, the bid was accepted, leading to USA’s Hockey ii (Intellectual Impairment) team being set to compete in its first international tournament, sending players provided by the All Starz program.

“I believe in the program and I believe field hockey is for everyone,” Bracco said.

As tryouts commenced, Weisbrot, who had been there from the beginning, was the first player drafted to the team.

“You can teach somebody field hockey, but you can’t teach them drive and motivation,” Bracco said. “Scott had that innately, so I knew that he could become really good. I just didn’t know how good at the time.”

In April, Weisbrot got the call that he had made the team.

“I remember one day they gave me a phone call for a Zoom meeting,” Weisbrot said. Team USA co-head coach Lindsay Jackson “gave me the message that I was going to be playing for Team USA. I had no idea what to say. I was shell-shocked.”

Weisbrot went to Merrick’s Calhoun High School and Nassau Community College for a year. He loves cars, listening to music and watching baseball, football and hockey. He also follows Hofstra University’s women’s field hockey team.

When he’s not playing sports, Weisbrot is a part-time DJ, going by the name Scottie Too Hottie. Weisbrot also writes for the blog “Autisticana,” a blog with posts by people with autism sharing their interests. He’s been writing for it for five years.

“I remember back in high school, I started to love writing stories, poetry, doing storytelling,” he said. “I said, ‘When I get older, I want to be a blogger.’ ’’

When Weisbrot travels to Belgium, it will be the first time he’s traveled outside the United States to compete in a sport and the first time he’s been to Europe.

“I always wanted to go to Europe — that’s been on my bucket list for a very long time,” he said. “I did an assignment in high school on where I wanted to travel around the world, and it was Europe and Belgium.

“I love the scenery,” he said of Belgium. “I also love that they speak Dutch. I love that there are old-fashioned town centers where there are pedestrian walkways. They also have a major transportation hub.”

His team’s roster features athletes from across the country representing California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. Sixteen countries are represented at the tournament.

“The idea is to go to Belgium to play, have fun, score goals,” Weisbrot said. “But most importantly, to have the best time of your life.”

Weisbrot says he wants this trip to be about more than just playing field hockey and, hopefully, winning games.

“I’m hoping to expand more awareness and support for the Special Olympics in the big fields of the media,” he said. “If you love ice hockey or any hockey in general, field hockey is the next hockey you should watch.”