Thriving Adaptive Sports Program Serving
Advantage Continues to Inspire Autistic Youth

The adaptive sports program Serving Advantage exists for young students on the autism spectrum and similar cognitive impairments like Jacob Cid, who recently suffered the devastating loss of his mother.

Jacob’s grandmother, Aylsa Cid, had heard of the non-profit organization started five years ago by three local high school sophomores from the City of Orange and reached out to find out more about the program. 

“It’s hard enough to process grief, but I can’t even imagine someone with autism and who is so young losing a parent,” said Wendi Eusebio, the current President of the non-profit Serving Advantage, co-founded by her son Jacob Eusebio, Natalie Rodriguez, and Andy Loughran. “She said he was just really lost.”

Serving Advantage, launched in 2020 with eight participants, has grown through its unique mentorship model. Each student is paired with a trained peer coach, or “Doubles Partner,” who volunteers at clinics and summer camp. Doubles Partners, local middle and high school tennis players, undergo specialized training to understand and support the special needs community, promoting awareness and inclusion. Through this experience, they gain leadership and coaching skills while forming meaningful, lasting relationships with students and their families.

Wendi matched student Jacob with a new volunteer, Artin Rastegar, who is one of 150 active middle and high school tennis players who donate their time to Serving Advantage coaching clinics and camps throughout the year.

“From the moment that Jacob and Artin met they just had this amazing connection,” said Eusebio, adding that Jacob’s grandmother recently relayed his affinity of the program to her. “They both loved Star Wars and they both had these common interests. He had found a place that brought him joy at a time in his life where he had a lot of grief and was so confused.”

Wendi continued: “Jacob never misses a clinic and takes lessons with one of our private coaches after every clinic, as well. I just think he found his happy place. All these kids his age, who are just rallying around him and cheering him on. When his grandmother told me this story I started to cry, because I had no idea. I relayed this to our leadership team because they’re young, and they don’t know the impact that they have.” 

National Autism Acceptance Month in April is a time to recognize groups like Serving Advantage, which work with children ages 8 to 17 with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) with the goal to use tennis to create friendships and mentorship bonds, and work to promote inclusion on a local, national, and global scale.

Eusebio said the idea for Serving Advantage came following discussions with her son Jacob, who was having difficulty connecting with his younger brother Evan, who is on the autism spectrum. The idea was to hold one summer camp and see where it went from there.

Currently the year-round clinics run every other weekend at two sites – Veteran Sports Park in Tustin and Bill Barber Memorial Park in Irvine. Summer and winter camps take place at a third site, the Anaheim Tennis Center.

“All of our coaches are high school tennis players who still create the adaptive curriculum,” Eusebio said. “We have taught adaptive athletes as young as 3 and as old as 37, so the teens are teaching adults. Many of our adult athletes process and engage with the world in ways that are different from what’s typical for their age. This allows them to connect really well with our teen coaches and that’s what makes it so much fun for everyone.”

Eusebio said there was little expectation for Serving Advantage at the start and looking back over the five years she is thrilled with the current state of the program. “I think our co-founders and youth leadership team have taken it beyond what I ever thought it would be,” she said. “To think we started doing one camp and now to see us teaching four clinics a month year-round and two annual camps is just amazing. Our volunteers and the students end up forming this bond that goes so much beyond tennis and extends farther than just the four corners of the court. Our hope is that they form life-long friendships.”

Jacob Eusebio, now 21, is a junior at the University of San Francisco and is currently broadening his horizons while studying abroad in Japan. He remains active from afar doing remote presentations and coming back to help when he’s on break. “In terms of what that looks like after he graduates, I’m not really sure,” Wendi said.

“I told Jacob I want him to live his life fully, knowing that Serving Advantage is in good hands,” Wendi continued. “He’ll always have the option to return in a larger role whenever the time feels right. Serving Advantage will forever hold a special place in his heart because tennis was the bridge that helped him form a meaningful bond with his younger brother, Evan.

“Jacob struggled for so many years on how to connect with Evan, and Evan loves playing tennis with his brother. When Jacob went away to school Evan told me he was ‘retiring’ from tennis because Jacob wasn’t there. We told him all his other friends were there and they would miss him and got him to change his mind.”

Wendi sees the future of Serving Advantage continuing to grow and opening up more locations.

“It’s been nice to work with the students and their families and inspiring to see how ambitious, creative, and hard-working our volunteer youth tennis players are in giving back to the sport they love playing.”