Unified: Establishing a Special Olympics College Club through Classroom Instruction

Abstract

Unified Sports is a program through the Special Olympics in which athletes with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) have the opportunity to play sports and socialize with students who do not have an ID (Zhang et al., 2022). Introduced in 1988, Unified Sports is either embedded within a high school or university environment and is typically student led (Townsend & Hassall, 2007). However, there can be many challenges with the initial creation of a Unified Sports program as well as how to keep it sustainable for future generations of students, to have the opportunity to actively be involved in the student club (Hassan et al., 2012).

This manuscript employed an autoethnography in which the primary author used self-reflection to focus on how Sport Management professors can create an experience within their classroom to facilitate the formation of a Unified Special Olympics College Club (Ellis et al., 2011).  In addition to the primary author’s self-reflection, the autoethnography incorporated an interview with a Special Olympics representative to better understand how to implement a Unified sports program on a college campus.

This research focused on experiential learning and showcased how Sport Management faculty can work with a non-profit organization to build an inclusive and diverse experience through education, collaboration, and community outreach. This research serves as a guide for future Sport Management programs looking to build partnerships with a non-profit entity and establishes the Unified Model for a Sport Event Management Course (UMSEMC) to help Sport Management instructors hoping to partner with the Special Olympics.