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College Life Lets 2 Students Triumph Over Adversity

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By MARILYN BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 2, 2007

GAINESVILLE - College brought Patrick Ayers leadership positions on both the freshman leadership council and his fraternity, a hearing officer post on the honor court and mostly A grades.

Marty Saitta, a year behind Ayers at the University of Florida's honors college, is heading toward his first semester exams with grades of A in both calculus and German and a solid B in chemistry. He's doing well living on his own, meeting people and hanging out on campus.

That's what both students from Hillsborough County hope you see when you look at them and what they have accomplished. But their accomplishments include much more. Maybe even more than they or their parents had dared dream.

Ayers was born with cerebral palsy and has never walked without the help of crutches.

Saitta was born with Asperger's syndrome, a developmental disorder related to autism that typically causes eccentric behavior and isolation.

Both teens could have remained in Hillsborough County, attending college close to continued physical and emotional support from home.

Both instead chose to attend the University of Florida, a school so large that able-bodied students can be overwhelmed surrounded by more than 50,000 students. Both ended up living in the honors Residential College at Hume Hall with full Bright Futures state scholarships.

Although both young men qualify for extra assistance through the university's disability resource center, they haven't taken advantage of much besides both requesting single rooms with a private bath.

An assistant brings Ayers chemical solutions for labs to save time and lessen the chance of spillage. Saitta gets extra time for tests if needed because he gets nervous, especially when there are distractions.

A Gator Since Childhood

First to venture to Gainesville was Ayers, a 2006 top graduate at Brandon High School. He arrived at the university three months after graduation.

"I was dead set to get in," Ayers, 19, said. "I've always been one to choose the more challenging."

When Ayers chose Gainesville over the University of South Florida, where he could either live at home and commute or live near campus, it was not a surprise to his parents.

Ayers has never allowed himself to be held back, opting for crutches over a wheelchair so he could walk. He's driven in every way, his parents say.

Beginning at age 8 or 9, Ayers became a Florida Gators fan, say his parents. When it came time for college, he also looked at colleges as far away as Illinois and California, said his mother, Kathleen Ayers.

When he decided on Florida, there was concern.

"It's hard enough to drop off your typical kid at school," she said. "It was really hard. There were a lot of tears. I don't think it really sank in for a few weeks.

"The first month I was thinking, 'What's he eating tonight? Who's he eating with?'"

Now, she said, it's easier. "He amazes me. I'm so proud of him."

Ayers remembers realizing that, although a bus would pick him up for classes, he had to walk to the student union across the street and up a hilly walk to get a meal. At home, he was always indulged in little ways - someone bringing him a drink or snack rather than watching him try to carry it from the refrigerator.

But, he said, "I had to eat. It was me taking care of myself."

Ayers knew it couldn't be like the time he called his parents to take him home after his freshman year in high school when he was supposed to stay overnight in a USF dorm and "I couldn't handle it. The separation was too much for me."

This time, he thought, "This was it. This was college. I had to make it work."

When Ayers needs help carrying his laundry bag to the laundry room, someone always grabs it and takes it for him, he said.

He periodically catches rides with other students to the store or asks his parents to ship items.

Letting go has been toughest for his father, Steve Ayers, an administrator with Hillsborough County schools. It was tough watching his son forge ahead in all the high school activities such as prom and graduation night at Disney World, even though he couldn't always fully participate, he said.

His son prefers not to reflect on high school, where, he said, he was "a big fish in a little pond" academically but there was more "patronization."

"College is the most accepting place I have been," he said. "They're just doing what everybody else is here to do.

"I have kids smarter than me," he said, "I'm very competitive. ... I'm OK not being a big fish in the pond."

Ayers is also "pushing myself to be more outgoing," a skill he knows he will need to pursue his interest in politics.

"He has never once complained," Steve Ayers said, and that made the breaking away even more emotional.

"You gotta let go," he said. "My mind told me that's what I need to do. Your heart, your emotions tell you something else."

That has worked to everyone's advantage, both he and his wife said.

"He's the one who's going to benefit," Kathleen Ayers said. "When I used to drop him off at school, I'd always say, 'Fulfill your destiny.' I know it sounds corny. I still say it."

Finding Common Ground

In August, when 18-year-old Marty Saitta left his Valrico home for Gainesville, the future was a question mark.

A 2007 graduate of Tampa's Pepin Academy, a charter school for students with disabilities, Saitta wanted the academic rigor and reputation of the engineering program at the university. He has a gift for math - scoring 760 out of 800 on his SAT college placement test.

Easily distracted, the teen feared he would forget to comb his hair and have trouble crossing the street.

He had never done laundry and his wallet was attached to his pocket by a chain.

The fear is gone.

Saitta has found a common ground he had never known before.

He got lost looking for his first German class. He lost, then recovered, his cell phone. And he has locked himself out of his dorm room - none of this atypical for a freshman.

As for his hair, "I brush it occasionally. If I have to," he says. "Usually I don't worry about my hair. It's very common not to comb your hair in college."

Crossing the street hasn't been a problem. Crosswalks mark nearly every street on campus. Saitta is careful to use them. "I look both ways," he says.

Saitta still talks loudly and blurts out his thoughts at times, but he has become a different 18-year-old than the one who left home just three months ago.

"I'm a lot older," he said on an October Saturday at the student union near his dorm on the university's sprawling campus. "When I was in high school, I felt like I was 12 or 13. Right now I feel like an 18-year-old."

The biggest surprise was the size of calculus and chemistry classes with 300 students each. Another surprise - the freedom to do what he wants to do.

"The hardest part is just being on my own in general," he said. "Having to talk with my teachers, do my own laundry."

Saitta is upbeat, eager to walk visitors around the sprawling campus, particularly the physics building where he soon will be taking classes for his engineering major.

That will take five years - plus graduate school, which is his plan.

When he was younger, other children sometimes took Saitta's lunch money or taunted him, not understanding unusual behaviors associated with Asperger's. He was interested in reading the dictionary or studying math, giving him little in common with peers.

Saitta found both acceptance and coaching with everyday skills at Pepin Academy, where he was among other students with learning disabilities. He graduated as valedictorian, taking some upper level classes online.

Leaving the small charter school to attend a huge university more than two hours from home was "a big step," acknowledged Timothy McRae, the Tampa child and adolescent psychiatrist who worked with Saitta.

His parents agreed, but had faith in their son's good nature and intelligence.

"It was most painful leading up to it," his father, Bob Saitta, said of the parting. The family, including his 16-year-old sister, Carol, accompanied him to Gainesville and got him settled. The son and brother then quickly bid them goodbye and left for a welcoming event.

"He left us all standing up in the room," his father said.

That is typical of his son's behavior, as is his reliance on order and routine.

Every other Friday, Bob Saitta drives to Gainesville after work to pick up his son to return home for the weekend. "I better not be late," he said. "He's waiting outside for me."

'Being His Own Boss'

He sees his son maturing. "He likes being his own boss," Bob Saitta said. "I hear, 'Dad, I can do this.' He's taking responsibility."

It's been tougher on Saitta's mother, Asuko, who met and married Bob in Japan. She phones her son twice a day and makes a special meal when he is home.

But it is not the same.

"I don't know how to describe it," Asuko Saitta said. "It's almost like part of my being or spirit or something like that was lost."

Seeing that her son no longer needs the help she once gave him poses a dichotomy.

"It surprises me every time I see him," she said. "It makes me sad in a way and in a way, it makes me so proud of him."

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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