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There's always a story Beyond the Score.

A coach's job is to teach players something and in his case it was the player's job to teach the coach something.

What they're going to experience is just a quiet area to go to, especially in an environment like this.

I've always just loved the coaches and they've been very supportive of my journey and since I wa younger and very vocal about it.

What's up beautiful people.

Welcome to Beyond Score.

I'm your host, Al Martin.

Now we've all heard the words "you can't."

It can be discouraging, but for some it pushes us to prove the doubters wrong.

Anthony Ianni has heard those words countless times.

He's taken "you can't" and shown that you can.

He went on to become the first Division I college basketball player identifie as being on the autism spectrum, playing for Michigan State's basketball Hall of Fame head coach Tom Izzo.

He now works as a school administrator in the city of Detroit, and he's championing something personal.

He struggled with the fan experience as a chil while attending sporting events and now wants to mak that experience more inclusive for fans with autism.

Every senior that has worn Michigan State men's basketball jersey heads to the nosebleeds, looking to sink an impossible shot.

For decades, each one has hurled the leather spiral through the air in hopes of seeing it go through the net.

This is Anthony Ianni.

A name etched in Michigan State history, not just for his heigh & hoops talent on the hardwood, but for his heart.

He became the first Division I men's basketball player with autism, and his journe has been anything but ordinary.

I want to start by just kind of taking in this.

We're on the court of the Breslin Center.

You're smiling.

And I know there's so many emotions.

So many emotions g through your body and your mind when you think about this place.

What are those emotions?

Joy?

A lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears went into putting some of these championship banners in here.

And I guess relief because, you know, this is the place I always want to be.

Well, you know, from the very beginning, there was just something a little unique about him when he was having a meltdown or a tantrum.

It had to just happen.

Now, looking at my granddaughters, it might be 20 minutes an for him, it might last all day.

Wow.

And anything could cause that.

A guest teacher at school.

The school bus wa a horrible experience for him.

Anthony's family found a developmental pediatrician in Ohio who was able to pinpoint exactly what was going on.

He said all of his tendencies are all of his idiosyncrasies and all of his behavior issues are related to pervasive developmental disorder, which is now we know in the umbrella of autism.

Anthony grew up a Spartan.

His father, Greg, who was a former MSU baseball player, was hired to the Michigan State Athletic Department in the early nineties.

While Dad was working, his mother, Jamie, would take him t countless MSU sporting events, including, of course, college basketball games.

I'm curious, where would you guys sit?

Section 106, row 20.

That was your seat.

Seats 101 through 104.

Those were our seats.

Wow.

That's where their seats were for 20, 23 years.

So you grew up in that section?

I grew up in that section.

I grew up in that section watching heartbreakers.

Fantastic finishes, championships.

I've been to six out of those eight Final Fours.

But for anyone with autism spectrum disorder, attending sporting events can prove to be a challenging experience especially for young children.

What is that like?

What would happen to you?

I'm sure you ever shake and coke bottle before an explosion.

Just an explosion.

That was me right there.

Because you throw buzzer, crowd, lights, aren all into one and it's shaken up.

And all of a sudden you open a bottle up in the back.

And then I just freak out.

Lights.

loud noises, and textures.

All ever presen stimuli for fans in the stands.

But those with AS can be sensitive to all of them.

Social skills, such as relating to people and holding conversation also proved to be difficult.

Anthony's older sister, Allison, became a safe haven.

I was always trying to shield him from situations before they could occur.

Anthony just had a tendency when we were younger to make statements that he thought were funny, that really weren't, or they were just they didn't make sense in the situation.

And so people would often take tha and use that to poke fun at him.

When you were bullied growing up, your sister was, oh yeah, you're protected.

She was there.

What did she mean to you?

Not just during that time, but even now as well.

Oh, everything.

She understood me better than anybody.

And whenever her friends would just kind of bully me or tease me lik she was always quick to step in.

And so even today, one thing that hasn't changed is how much she still has my back and how much she has been there for me.

It helped me get to where I am today.

Basketball.

Anthony's other safe space.

A sport which turned into an escape.

Well, he started playing out when he was in elementary school league down here at Okemos.

And they always identify the biggest kid.

Right.

And so he was that guy.

He wasn't included in things with his classmates because he was different.

And basketball made him feel like he's one of the guys because they didn't care who he was.

All they cared about was you could play basketball.

And when Anthony got ingrained into basketball culture and was at the first time that you guys saw Anthony truly belong to a group?

Oh, no question.

When you told your team they embraced you especially especially Johnathan Jones Yeah.

JJ took me under his wing right away because from when he was on varsity his freshman year, he saw a lot of him when it came to me.

I didn't know a lot of those guys, but they embraced me like I quickly became the little brother of that group.

And when I first told JJ about my autism, he like, he he's like, dude, I don't care.

Like, it's that doesn't define you.

"...Convention Center.

6'10" Junior #44 Anthony Ianni."

That acceptance helped Anthony to flourish on the court.

He turned out to be so good that while at Okemos High School, he quickly became on of the top players in the area.

One of his standout games cam when he helped lead the school to the Class A state title game against Saginaw Arthur Hill.

Anthony, a 6'10" center, poured in 23 points and nine rebounds.

Okemos would fall short.

But it was clear that Anthony had a chance at playing ball at the college level with Anthony's father, Greg, going on to become deputy athletic director at Michigan State, that allowed him to attend MSU basketball practices where he got to know basketball Hall of Fam head coach Tom Izzo pretty well.

You were really young going t Coach Izzo's office and saying, I'm going to play for you.

Hey, I want to be on this roster.

You remember that, coach?

What what was your reaction to that, seeing this little kid say, hey, coach, I'm going to play for you when I get bigger?

Yeah, that was my reaction, right?

Right.

It was cute at the time, bu I thought he was crazy at first.

But I think that's the beauty of this story is that he did.

I did.

He did.

Anthony became the first known college basketball player with autism, spending two seasons at Grand Valley State University.

He would then transfer to MSU.

Izzo admits that coaching Anthony forced him to grow as a coach and person.

A coach's jo is to teach players something, and in his case, it was a player's job to teach the coach something.

You know, and had no idea how to deal with it.

I mean, ignorantly, if you want the truth, just a no no knowledge of it.

So probably I think early on, you know, just kind of let him do his own thing and and that that wasn't my personality and probably wasn't what you wanted.

So that changed quickly.

In what way?

In what way did it change?

I got on hi just as well as I got Draymond.

And that's what I mea about teaching me something.

And I can think of different guys that had different things to overcome.

And he made me believe you can overcome.

Okay, here we are.

The Spartan Family Sensory roo opened in the fall of last year.

The space acts as a quiet place for fans to take a break from the overstimulation that can be present at basketball games and other public events at the Breslin Center.

The room helps those with sensory issues by using objects, special lighting and music.

Anthony pioneered its construction after seeing how common the rooms started becoming around the nation.

So I immediately called Michigan State.

I said hey, the Warriors did their Sensory Room in a janitor's closet; do we have anything like that?

So about a year later he calls me - "I got a space."

Michigan Stat became the first Big Ten school in the entire conference to have a sensory room in its arena.

Wow.

I really wanted to bring the inclusion piece back to our university and that sensory room.

It's just.

It's not that big of a room, but it's a big deal to a lot of other people on this campus.

In creating this safe, calming space, Anthony's helping little Anthony, the one who sat in Section 106, row 20 and who needed just a little extra help.

Anthony is now school administrator in Detroit, a renowned motivational speaker and author and father.

He credits his tribe for everything, offering love strength and fierce protection.

What are you the most proud of when it comes to Anthony?

I think probably the thing I'm most proud o is the human being that he is.

Just how he's just a kind, compassionate, empathetic, amazing young person.

He loves working with those kids, and I think he feels like he's making a difference.

A lot of people don't get that opportunity in their lives, and I just couldn't be prouder.

You can look in the record books and you might not see his name plastered all over it, but I always thought he loved the game.

You know, people sometime play it for different reasons.

What the game can do for them instead of what they can do for the game.

I thought he looked at it an what he could do for the game.

One additional note: Anthony wants to see mor sensory rooms around the Big Ten and is in talks with universities who are looking to make that happen.

Our next story features the Michigan State Women's Gymnastics Program, which is now taking center stage.

It's a team that was marred by a dark chapter but is now rewriting its legacy one routine at a time.

Thanks to strong new leadership and a ridiculously talented roster.

They've now turned the mats into magic, reaching historic success.

You, of course, were the interim head coach of this program and were offered the job.

Why take the job?

It was easy decision at the beginning, even under the circumstances that were going on, because I did always want my own program and had a vision for, you know, what I thought I could do.

It was a scanda that rocked the world of sports, a betrayal so deep it lef an entire institution reeling.

"With Larry Nassar no sentenced to life in prison..." Larry Nassar' story isn't just one of abuse.

It became a reckoning, a call for change.

And in the aftermath, Michigan State's women's gymnastics team found itself at a crossroads.

The disgraced former MSU sports physician, who also served as team doctor for the U.S. Women's National Gymnastics team, is spendin the rest of his life behind bars for the sexual assault of young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment.

In wake of the scandal, 27 year MSU women's gymnastics coach Kathie Klages stepped down, leaving behind a program desperate for leadership.

Enter Mike Rowe, a man with a plan, a vision, and perhaps more importantly, a heart.

For you personally, what kind of emotional state were you in when you decided that, okay, I want to I want to take over this job and see what I can do.

A lot of question marks.

It was more like, let's hold it together for now and just bring the fun back into the sport.

And I think that's kind of what was lacking and the circumstances didn't help at that time.

There was a bright light at the end of the tunnel.

We just was maybe like out of focus and wasn't quite there yet, that there was still this fir burning inside me that was like, you know, we can get out of this, we can move forward.

There's going to be a time when it's better.

So I'm wondering what becomes your recruiting pitch during those moments?

How did you get talente gymnasts to fill out that roster so that you can compete at the highest level?

You know when they come here on a, well, unofficial or an official visit or whatever, and we're like, this is who we are.

We want you to know us from the inside out.

We want you to ask them any questions, but we want you to do the same for us.

When they leave here, they leave here feeling like this is a staff I can trust.

Parents leave here thinking I feel great sending my daughter across the country to come here and land for four years at Michigan State because they have a team that loves them, you know, unconditionally.

Skyla Schulte.

Her name hangs in the rafters of Jenison Fieldhouse.

She's been Big ten freshma of the year, earned first team All-big ten accolades, and yes, is an all-American.

She hails from Illinois and knew pretty earl that she wanted to be a Spartan.

You said you were really young when you decided to commit to the program.

How young were you?

I was a freshman in high school, honestly, because I was so young.

I think my parents wanted me to take a longer time to pick a program to join to.

So I actually never went on an official.

I had an unofficial I wasn't allowed to be in the gym.

I couldn't really, like, interact with the girls on the team, but I could watch from outside of the gate.

And just the way that the team dynamic and everybod kind of got along, everybody's laughing, having fun like while they're conditioning.

It made me super excited for what I want to do here.

Skyla's parents are both MSU grads.

Her father is a former Spartan wrestler.

I grew up wanting to come here and obviously they would love for me to come here, but they also wanted m to kind of pick my own journey.

They didn't want their story to be mine, so they wanted me to go on other official visits and just see other schools.

But I told them tha I didn't want to and that this is where I wanted to be for the next four years.

What is it about Coach Rowe that sold you?

I would sa probably just his personality.

He's just a goof like this personality.

He has a story for everything.

Gabi Stephen from Illinois, like Skyla, and Nikki Smith, who is from the Detroit area, are also accomplished gymnasts rockin in the green and white leotard.

They say that Coach Rowe's charm has a domino effect, bringing this team together as a family.

I think it really started a lot from my freshman year and growth in like just embracing who we are.

Like people are crazy on our team.

If you look at other any other team on campus, like they'll know when the gymnastics team is coming.

It's a ruckus and you can tell when we're competing.

Like people will approach us and tell us like, I can tell you guys really car about each other and competing like we do.

It's not fake at all.

We can really be like completely ourselves around each other.

We bond in and outside of the gym and there's a delicious word that has become a for of encouragement for the team.

They were not allowed to give each other like corrections in our routines.

We say mangoes.

So mango.

mango.

Okay.

Yeah.

So if you ever hear us shouting mangoes, that's us.

Like, it means really whatever you need i to mean in the moment.

Breathe.

Take your time.

Straighten your knees like you got it.

Mangoes.

"Mangoes" keep MSU gymnastics grounded in unity and the program may have picked its sweetest addition yet.

Lilia Cosman is a highly decorated Romanian American gymnast.

She's a Lansing native that has dual citizenship.

Her parents immigrated to the U.S. in 2001.

In 2022, she moved to Romania, joining the national team.

And after 12 years of no competing on the Olympic stage, Lilia helped them break that streak, competing in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

She now becomes Michigan State's first ever Olympic recruit.

Ever since I was younger, I would tell my parents like, I want to compete at the Olympics.

I want to go there.

It's always been like a goal.

I was definitely nervous because you want to do your best, but I think the excitement was definitely very overpowering.

I would say the first, it's like, Wow, wow momen was definitely seeing the venue and with all the people in the stands, it was crazy because I think that was like the most I've ever competed with.

So I was just thinking like, just go out there, show the world what they came here to see.

You have committed to Mike Rowe's program.

What went into that commitment and why Michigan State?

They were definitely very supportive, very encouraging.

So that was definitely a very good feeling for me as like, "okay, they really like love me."

They were my first visit and when I went there I love the energy of the team.

I love the way they all get along.

I could see mysel being here.

Our energies match.

I love the coaches.

I love the girls.

Like this would definitely be my home.

What is it about Coach Rowe i his personality that you like?

Everything.

He's very bubbly.

I'm going to let him know you said that.

Yeah.

She was ready to go to the airport.

We were in the kitchen.

She took her backpack on.

She was ready to go, and she said so what university do you think I should pick?

I was like, "now do you ask me?"

I mean, now?

I mean, you're leaving right now for the airport to go to Romania, and you ask me now?

Right.

I said, My answer is this.

Whatever you feel comfortable with, because you will have to live with it.

When you have an Olympian on your roster who goes out to Paris is a part of Team Romania what does that do for Michigan State's gymnastics program?

Lilia knows where the program has been and has evolved to, and I think she has a strong feeling that she could be a good part of this program rising even higher.

Now we have Olympians wanting to come here.

It just makes you feel good.

The transformation of the program was seen front and center of the collegiate gymnastics world earlier this year.

It was already a season for the ages, winning back to back regular season titles.

Now it was time for the elusive Big Ten championships meet, which the program had never won.

Sure, Coach Rowe and his team have always believed that a Big Ten championships title was possible.

But it's one thing the dream it and a whole nother thing to live it.

MSU started on the floor, earning its best score of the night, second best floor score of the season.

Then to vault - Skyla leading off.

Gabi and Nikki to finish.

The home crowd at Jenison was deafening as they cheered on the 1-seed Spartans.

On to bars.

And then the pivotal moment a moment made even more dramatic due to Gabi Stephen suffering a fluke injury.

What happens with the foot?

Okay I was just coming up the stairs and I caught my foot on th metal stairs and split it open.

It was like gushing blood.

I had to get up with my toe literally wrapped like.

And so then they, like, looked at me.

They're like, I think we might have to put a stitch in it.

And I was like, We're goin to have to find another solution because that's not going to work.

So they tried to glue it together, rewrapped it, and then it stuck for the whole meet.

So.

Wow.

Yeah.

I didn't even know Gabi cut her foot.

You didn't.

No, I had no idea until we're getting ready to go on beam tha that whole thing even happened.

Did you say anything to her?

I was not going to do anything to intensify, bring attention to whatever.

I had full confidence in Gabi that she is who she is and she's not going to have a problem with it.

With Gab in the anchor position on beam and her foot held together with tape and glue, she did what this program has done time and time again when staring in the face of adversity.

Yeah.

Stuck it, finished, an I could hear the crowd erupting, just looking up.

And then the score changed and I was like, It was an indescribable moment.

Thank God she did what I thought she could do.

You know, for Coach Rowe, the accomplishments of this year proved bittersweet.

He would lose the man who helped fuel much of his drive.

His father.

All of my life, my dad was a coach and just so proud and loved the girls and knew them by name.

And my sister and brother in law brought him her for the Big Ten championships.

So they were here to see it.

And that was a huge moment.

But we lost him in June, so I know he's proud.

This is a program that's rewriting its story and they feel as though the best chapters are yet to come.

I think we have an ultimate goal, and that is nationals, and we all know that.

But I think it's really about staying in the present.

I think that there's a hunger on the team still.

We want to be the last four teams standing on the floor at NCAAs in Fort Worth.

The sky's the limit for this program.

The quest for another Big Ten championship for Coach Row and his team starts next month.

I'm Al Martin.

And on behalf of our amazing team here at WKAR, thanks for joining us.

And be easy, people.

Beyon the Score is supported in part by Capital Insurance Services offering comprehensive personal and commercial insurance, including medical professional liability to Lansing and throughout Michigan since 1980.

More resources and information about offerings at capital insurance dot com.