Decide for Yourself What You Can Do

Where others see a challenge, David Mariano ’11 sees an opportunity. Mariano studied psychology on the Heights, but away from the classroom, his passion was playing rugby for the Dolphins. Mariano loves the game, with all of the mental and physical challenges it presents. What’s more, he is grateful for the relationships he has cultivated thanks to the sport. He made many of his closest friends through the team, and even went on to marry a member of the women’s rugby squad, Kaitlyn (Klima) Mariano ’11. Yet, when he first set foot on campus, Mariano could not have imagined that sports, and an eventual medical diagnosis, would also afford him the opportunity to serve others. 

When he was an undergraduate, Marino began to notice changes in his vision that concerned him. Doctors eventually determined the cause, retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye disorders that cause progressive vision loss. Today Mariano is legally blind and uses a white cane to navigate unfamiliar spaces, but he has not lost his passion for athletics. In addition to his full-time job at the manager of equity, access and ability for global relations and community engagement for the YMCA, Mariano is the founder of Eye Got This (EGT), a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting blind and low-vision athletes. It is rooted in a simple premise: These individuals should not have to give up the sports they love.

EGT encourages and empowers blind and low-vision athletes through its growing guide-runner assistance program and its blind/guide running vest program. To date the organization’s vests have been used across 15 states, including by a participant in the Ironman in Hawaii, and in England and Australia. They are available to athletes free of charge. While Eye Got this is currently focused on the running community, Mariano is looking to expand into baseball and soccer, and is identifying ways to make those games more accessible to blind or low-vision people through the use of adaptive technology. 

In many ways, Mariano’s work with EGT mirrors that with the YMCA. He is a member of the Y’s Global Engagement and Community Relations team, which is responsible for ensuring that the more than 2,600 YMCA locations across the nation are accessible to 11 million people of all abilities who use them every year. Internally, he says, they use the expression “Y for All.” He strives to model that message of inclusion. For Mariano, success is measured in the number of people he can help enjoy the benefits that come from playing a sport, namely a sense of community, purpose and belonging. To that end, whether he is speaking to an athlete he has met through the Y or through EGT, his message is simple.