MARIETTA, Ga. — For nearly 50 years, gymnasts have practiced their cartwheels, splits and tumbling routines in an old purple barn off Canton Road, just northeast of Town Center mall.

It’s hard to tell from outside the gym, which is identified only by large, faded lettering, but the Cobb club is one of — if not the only — age, ability and gender inclusive athletic teams in the world.

Chattooga Gymnastics was started in 1976 by Cindy Bickman and her parents, Tom and Brownie Beaver.

It was a true family operation: Tom built the gym, Brownie did the books and Bickman was in charge of coaching.

Bickman said inclusion wasn’t an express goal for Chattooga, but became a reality after a deaf gymnast joined the first team and the demand for ability-inclusive teams became immediately apparent.

By 1987, Bickman became the gymnastics coach for the Cobb County Special Olympics team, and Chattooga was the de facto gym for any Special Olympian in the metro area to train in.

“Chattooga is the most inclusive (gym) in the country, possibly across the globe. It is the most inclusive one,” said Minoru “Shino” Shinohara, former Georgia State chairman of USA Gymnastics.

Shinohara said other gyms, particularly those that offer the more advanced rhythmic gymnastics, have a near-militant training style. At Chattooga, he said, “it is more like a family.”

That familial aspect stems partly from the fact that many gymnasts spend decades training there.

Karen Davis was 12 years old the first time Bickman coached her on the 1987 Special Olympics team.

Now 49, Davis still practices with Bickman weekly.

Paulette Harrison, 59, started coming to Chattooga when she was 19, and Lani DeMello, 39, has spent 20 years training in the barn, which she calls her “second home.”

“These are girls that have grown up in this program,” Bickman said.

The family feeling also comes from the multi-generational team makeup — several parents and even grandparents participate in team performances.

Tournaments and showcase performances have taken the team all around the world, from South Africa to Switzerland, Finland to Brazil and, most recently, Germany.

Roughly 70 Chattooga gymnasts of all ages, genders and abilities traveled to Leipzig, Germany in late May for the world’s largest gymnastics festival. The first U.S. team to be invited to Turnfest, Chattooga performed alongside gymnasts from Sweden, Germany, Lithuania, Greece and Slovakia as part of an International Inclusion Team.

Bickman said theirs was the only performance to receive a standing ovation.

“All the members of the team had people coming up to them when they were walking down the street, when they were eating at restaurants,” Bickman said.

It’s nothing the Chattooga gymnasts aren’t used to by now.

Several have risen to national and even international acclaim, like DeMello and Shannon Laffey, who have both held Down syndrome World Champion titles.

The team was recognized with a proclamation from Commissioner Keli Gambrill last month, has been the muse for several songs by the German pop band Herzgold, and is the subject of an upcoming feature-length documentary by filmmaker Trish Govoni.

“I have documentary ideas all the time, and I talk myself out of them. I couldn’t talk myself out of this one … I was hooked,” Govoni said.

People are drawn to Chattooga for different reasons.

For parents who have children with disabilities, it has long been the only place that would accept them.

“The first time I called, I spoke with Cindy and I said … I wanted to find a class where they would be able to work with her because she had special needs,” Lucia Barrera-Sparkman said of the decision to bring her daughter, Marylynn Collins, to Chattooga.

“And I — I’ll never forget — Cindy said that all her coaches would work with Marylynn. Any of them. Any day, any class. And I’ve never looked back. So, Marylynn’s been here forever. And we’ll always be here.”

For parents whose children do not have a disability, Chattooga is place where their kids can grow their gymnastics skills and learn a lesson about inclusion.

“This is a very special place, very, very special, what they do here — we are the ones included,” said Silvana Forde, whose 12-year-old daughter, Abi, a Simpson Middle School student, has been on the Chattooga team for two years. “(In) the rest of society, you are including special needs individuals to whatever program you have. However, here, we are the ones included.”

Bickman has never doubted her Special Olympians, unafraid to enter them in any competition.

“The first one in Germany, they (competition officials) didn’t know they had special needs. I just entered them against the national teams of all the Eastern European countries. We kind of stole the show,” Bickman said.

Team members haven’t always been greeted with open arms.

“I remember taking Paulette to a restaurant down the street and people laughing at her in the bathroom when we first started,” Bickman said. “And now that doesn’t happen so much. People are used to seeing people who are different.”

Bickman said sweeping changes to bring inclusion into gymnastics, including a new rule allowing Special Olympians to compete in any USA Gymnastics event, are a testament to a changing culture.

“So many places, when we started doing this, people would turn away these kids and not allow them into their program, and mostly because they didn’t know what to do with them, and they were afraid that they weren’t equipped to handle them,” Bickman said. “But once we go, everybody invites us back.”

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