One would have seen many athletes competing with huge hearts, and plenty of pride and joy while experiencing sportsmanship at its best if one saw the Unified Sports soccer tournaments at Wilton High School, Fairfield Ludlowe High School and Staples High School this fall.
Unified Sports, which began in Massachusetts in 1989, involves students with disabilities teaming up with students without disabilities to compete in several different sports against similar teams from other schools.
The Unified Sports program among the member schools of the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference has grown exponentially in recent years. Seventeen of the 18 schools are now involved, a huge increase from when only handful of schools partook in competition 10 years ago, as Trinity Catholic is the conference’s only school which does not have a team.
The Unified Sports teams from the FCIAC have competed in and will continue to compete in tournaments for soccer, basketball and volleyball and a track and field competition.
The program is a win-win situation for the students with and without disabilities, the parents, teachers, coaches, administrators and fans who show up with vociferous support which gives the students with disabilities many smiles and much pride while they are competing.
The students with disabilities are called athletes and their teammate students without disabilities are called partners, who relish their role in helping facilitate a proper flow to the game to aid their athlete teammates.
“It’s great from a physical standpoint and a social aspect,” said Julianne Hudson, the Special Education Trainer and for Fairfield Ludlowe. “I see from the students I work with that they are developing teamwork and there is support from within the school. It carries over into the classroom, where our kids have something to talk to the other (partner) athletes about. Our (special education) kids will wear their team jerseys to school on Fridays just like the other sports teams and you can just see how they’re very proud about that.”
“The socialization development is a huge part of this,” agreed Erin Randall, the eighth-year coach of Greenwich’s Unified Sports team. “It’s a great thing when you get to see how well the athletes and partners are developing their togetherness and camaraderie. It’s given (the athletes) a chance at communicating with others and it’s had a positive impact on our partners as well. They’re always rising up and stepping up for our athletes.
“It’s fantastic because it’s creating opportunities for everyone and everyone is treating each other as equals.”
Seven teams played in this season’s first soccer competition at Wilton’s Nick Zeoli Fieldhouse on Oct.4 before a great crowd of parents, teachers and administrators and there was also similar success on Oct. 20 when Fairfield Ludlowe’s two teams served as host to teams from Bassick, Darien, Greenwich and Wilton.
“Every one of the athletes will be getting gold medals today because every athlete will have done their best,” Hudson said during the Oct. 20 competition. “And every athlete scores a goal today.”
That also included one young lady from Fairfield Ludlowe who got to throw in several goals from her wheelchair after being wheeled to the front of the goal net by a partner.
Greenwich athlete Michelle Yoon was quite the stellar athlete as a goalkeeper. One could sense her gushing with pride after yet another great save followed up by solid kicks to set up her teammates.
Keith Ross, 16, an athlete from Fairfield Ludlowe spoke with a huge smile while sharing what the program means to he and his teammates.
“It’s good because we do an activity called Best Buddies and we get to hang out with friends too,” Ross said. “I have a lots of fun. I scored a lot of goals. My favorite goal was when I shot it into the net and did a victory dance.”
The athletes competed as hard as they could and after one Ludlowe athlete took a real hard fall to the floor after inadvertently tripping over the foot of athlete Harry Perlman of Greenwich, Perlman immediately leaned over to check on the Ludlowe athlete’s well-being and apologize to him.
Tajinae Faulkner, 20, is an athlete who is now out of high school but involved in a program and is able to still play for the Bassick team.
She could not have been more proud of herself and teammates with what they had just accomplished on the court.
“My favorite part is to be the goalie. And my other favorite part is sometimes I like to kick (the ball),” Faulkner said. “My teammates are kind of nice because of the support they give me. And I support them. I tell them how nice they are. I tell them to play easy. And I tell them good job.”
Yoon, Ross, Perlman, Faulkner and their fellow athletes truly captured the essence of fun, camaraderie and sportsmanship during the competition.
Soon after that buzzer sounded, there were high-fives and high-tens aplenty among the athletes and partners on the same teams before they all dutifully got in an organized line to share more congratulatory high-fives and high-tens with the athletes and partners on the opposing teams.
Following the competition the athletes, partners and coaches got to chow down on pizza and the athletes all received yet another boost to their pride when they all received their medals.
The winter Unified Sports competition will include basketball tournaments at Fairfield Ludlowe High School on March 6 and March 12.
“This program helps our kids develop socially and gain focus,” said Bassick coach Matt Sweet, who concurred with Randall in how there are several aspects in which the young partners are getting as much reward out of this program as the athletes are. “In my second year doing this I realized how important the team thing is, how it builds empathy skills as one of the major things.”
Randall perhaps captured the true essence of this Unified Sports program when she concluded, “It’s a beautiful, heartwarming thing. It really is.”
