Cooper Neel couldn’t tie his shoes until the eighth grade. It wasn’t until he was thirteen that he learned to ride a bike. “I was bullied a bunch,” he said. “I saw all these other kids doing normal things.” What really stung as a young boy was watching his parents, siblings and extended family learning to kiteboard. “I was that kid on the boat who couldn’t do it,” he said. “My self-esteem really took a hit.” Yet now thanks to a free adaptive sports program launched by Jon Beery and Jake Hoefler, co-principals of Nantucket’s Next Level Watersports, Neel and others with disabilities are no longer pushed to the sidelines. They’re taking flight—quite literally.

Neel is one of a number of people who have now learned to kiteboard or wakeboard (like water skiing except on a board rather than skis) through adaptive water sports instruction offered by Next Level Watersports. The term “adaptive” means that either the instruction or the equipment is adjusted to suit a learner who has either cognitive or mobility challenges. “I have dyspraxia,” Neel explained. The condition doesn’t affect intellectual ability but interferes with motor skills. “It creates a disconnect between movements and your brain,” explained Neel, who is a communication studies major at Texas Christian University. “It makes it really difficult to do two things at once. I need to do one thing, and with kiteboarding you’re flying a kite and having to have a special stance on the board at the same time.”

Neel was determined, though, and so were Beery and Hoefler, who gave him kiteboarding lessons when he was in his teens. “They were very considerate and understanding that I may not get it on the first try,” he said. “They would try to say things in different terms to help me understand. It took me forever to put the two skills together. But Jake and Jon gave me great instruction, as well as just making me feel like a normal kid and encouraging me.”

Another beneficiary of Next Level’s adaptive sports initiative is sixty-three-year-old Patrice O’Brien. “I’ve been walking with crutches my entire life,” said the retired occupational therapist, who has cerebral palsy and now “pretty much” uses a wheelchair whenever she goes outside. “It was a blessing that I grew up with a family who didn’t treat me like an egg ready to break. I’ve jumped out of an airplane; I’ve done adaptive biking, snow skiing...but water sports are the best.” Now, with Beery’s instruction, O’Brien has begun learning to kiteboard, which she will be able to do on a board that has a seat rather than strapping onto the board with her feet. “He’s very patient,” O’Brien said, “and he’s got this passion to make more opportunities for people with disabilities.”

That passion, for both Beery and Hoefler, is personal. Hoefler as a youth had a hockey buddy who was hoping to go pro until he went flying head first into the boards, which began a series of paralyzing events. Beery knew someone in college who he says was “one of the most active human beings ever” until he went over the handle bars on a bike, broke his spine and will have limited functionality for the rest of his life. “This always stuck in the back of my head,” Beery said. “I’d seen adaptive skiers ripping down mountains for years. These guys are in bucket chairs, and they’re flying down runs; it’s this amazing outlet. But no one was doing adaptive kiting. That’s where the vision for this started.”

It was in Nantucket Harbor’s calm waters that Andrew Mangan became yet another person who benefited from Beery’s instruction. Five and a half years ago at the age of sixteen, the now-twenty-two-year-old Stanford University computer science major belly flopped for fun from a hot tub into what he thought was soft powder snow, only to find that it was hard packed. He became a quadriplegic in that instant. Six feet, five inches tall and very athletic, Mangan has since become a competitive adaptive rower and has also learned to surf. Now, with Beery’s help, he will be able to kite-board with his family right outside his home on Lake Erie, near Buffalo, New York.