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Special Olympics Ohio Holds State Tourney
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HILLIARD, Ohio—The Special Olympics’ mission is to provide yearround sports training and competition opportunities for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
This is what the Special Olympics Ohio strives to continue to accomplish.
Coming up from March 27-29, the Special Olympics will be holding its 2010 State Basketball Tournament.
This year, the state tournament is set to take place in Hilliard. The games and events will be held in the gymnasiums of Hilliard Davidson, Darby, Memorial, Weaver and Bradley, along with a gym at The Ohio State University.
“Team basketball is one of the most popular and competitive sports that we offer in Special Olympics. For us, basketball in Special Olympics brings our own sort of ‘March Madness’ very similar to the high school and NCAA championships,“ Special Olympics Ohio Program Director Martin Allen said.
The State Basketball Individual Skills Tournament will also be held in conjunction with the State Team Basketball Tournament this year. This contest will go on at Darby High School from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 27.
Athletes who are not yet able to play team basketball can enter the State Skills Tournament if they first enter and complete in an Area Basketball Individual Skills Contest conducted around the state.
Athletes who are on registered basketball teams are not eligible for the skills tournament.
Skills athletes are of all ages—from 8 years to adults in their 50s and 60s. In Skills, athletes compete in female or male divisions as appropriate and break it down further to the Special Olympics age groups of 8 to 11, 12 to 15, 16 to 21, 22 to 29 and 30 and older.
“Within each of those age groups, we ability group them into divisions based upon their entry score at the Area Qualifier. In that way, each athlete has a chance to compete against athletes of the same sex, approximate age and ability,“ Allen said.
Each ability division in skills will be awarded gold, silver, bronze or place ribbons for fourth through sixth places. No more than six athletes compete in an ability division in skills.
Allen also said that Special Olympics basketball is quite popular with teams from Hilliard, Columbus City Schools, Upper Arlington City Schools, Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities and a number of other adult service agencies.
You will see our basketball championships in March well-attended by families and people from the community they represent. It seems to me that the largest crowds we get at some of the games at the State Championships are from the smaller communities in Ohio. People in Ohio love their basketball,“ Allen said.
This story first was written for Hilliard Darby’s Panther Press and shared with NBC 4 as part of a media collaboration between school and the station.
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