The first Special Olympics North Carolina Middle Schools Unified Sports Bocce Tournament ever to be held in North Carolina took place May 31 in Charlotte at the Marion Diehl Center fields for more than 300 students from 14 Charlotte/Mecklenburg middle schools. The CMS teams were made up equally of students with and without intellectual disabilities.
The tournament was part of a nation-wide initiative being carried out in schools by Special Olympics called Project UNIFY. Special Olympics Project UNIFY, funded nationally by the US Department of Education, empower youths to develop school communities where young people work to improve the culture in our school environments so that people with intellectual disabilities are better accepted by their peers who do not have intellectual disabilities. Many initiatives make up Project UNIFY including inclusive sports such as the Unified Sports bocce tournament.
Unified Sports® is a program that combines approximately equal numbers of Special Olympics athletes with peer athletes without intellectual disabilities on sports teams for training and competition. Furthermore, all players (Athletes and Unified Partners) are of similar age and ability. Unified Partners in this program need to have the necessary skill level to participate in the sport so they can be appropriately matched with Special Olympics athletes.
With the Project UNIFY funding, Special Olympics North Carolina build permanent bocce courts at each school and provided training and sports equipment so that students could properly prepare. Participating middle schools included Alexander Graham Middle School, Bailey Middle School, Carmel Middle School, Coulwood Middle School, Crestdale Middle School, Eastway Middle School, Bradley Middle School, Jay M. Robinson Middle School, North East Middle School, Quail Hollow Middle School, Randolph Middle School, Ridge Road Middle School, South West Middle School and Whitewater Middle School.
