Orono Public School’s Unified basketball team is headed to the 2018 Special Olympic Games in Seattle. The team will fly to Seattle to represent the state of Minnesota in basketball on July 1. They will remain there until July 6.

The Orono Unified Program is a huge part of the Orono community. Students in all grades can participate in Unified, which is currently one of the biggest and most attended clubs at OHS.

“The Orono Unified team is the first high school sports team to be selected to go to the USA games for Special Olympics,” senior Thomas Lecy said.

The Unified coaches–Hannah Striggow, Hank Seward and Michelle Swenson–will also be traveling with the team. Both Striggow and Seward graduated from Orono High School in 2016. Team members Will Larson, Bobby Striggow, Sam Perry, Amelie Wall, Thomas Lecy, Natalie Brekken, Pierce Penaz, Kira Reymann, Jacob Stankevitz, and Aaron Petrie will also be going.

Senior Amelie Wall said that part of the reason the team qualified for the Seattle Olympics was that they took second place in state. 

Basketball is one of the top sports in the program, according to the Special Olympics Washington website. Basketball is also a favorite sport among the players.

“The Unified team will be playing teams from all over instead of just from Minnesota,” junior Daniel Walker said.

The team has been working hard to reach their goal of attending the Special Olympics in Seattle. Even after they qualified for Seattle by placing second in state, they still needed the final approval.

“[The Unified team] sent out an application that we had to apply for, after that we had a team interview. A week later they told us that we had been selected,” Lecy said.

The Special Olympic games were founded in 1968 by Eunice Shriver. It is now affecting the lives of a little over 3.5 million athletes and families, according to the Special Olympic website.

“I think the team will grow and bond together. With a week together with almost no alone time, I think they will develop a bond that you can’t get from being at school,” senior Lily Peterson said.

Now there are 223 programs in 160 countries around the world. Special Olympics has over 1 million volunteers and coaches according to the Special Olympic Website.

Special Olympics has 12 sports that the athletes can participate in. Those programs are divided by season. In the winter they have Alpine Skiing, Basketball, Cross Country Skiing, Figure & Speed Skating, Snowboarding; in the spring they have Aquatics, Athletics (Track & Field), Long Distance Running/Walking, Cycling, Powerlifting, Soccer, Unified Bocce. Summer activities include Golf and Softball. Fall sports are Bowling, Flag Football and Volleyball.

Since the Special Olympics requires members to be eight years old before competing, the program introduced something called Young Athletes. Young Athletes is a subgroup of  Special Olympics. This program teaches kids ages two to seven years old the basic skills of sports like running, kicking and throwing. Orono students and teachers help teach kids how to follow directions and share.

The Special Olympics has over 1.7 million volunteers throughout their worldwide programs, according to Special Olympics Washington. Just in the Washington area, they have over 8,000 volunteers who contribute to the activities.

The Orono community wishes the best of luck to all of our Unified members.