Special Olympics Holds Practice at Lyndon State College

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Created on Monday, 24 March 2014 14:39
Written by Michael Desmond

Special_Olympic_Basketball.jpgLyndon - Vermont's Special Olympics Basketball Team from Saint Albans practiced at Lyndon State College this weekend to get ready for the National Special Olympic Games in Princeton, New Jersey this summer. 

The team won the state title to advance to the National Games by using their chemistry. Kasia Bilodeau, the coach of the team was very happy with the performance and the way the team played. " What is neat about our team is some of these guys have known each other five to ten years, they even went to elementary school together. We did really good in our basketball competitons and get to go to Nationals."

What makes this group different is that they have partners on the team. There are two kinds of teams in the Special Olympics, traditional and unified teams. Unified teams have players that do not have a disability, but they help lead the team.

On Saturday night, the Vermont team played against New Hampshire. Even though New Hampshire is playing in a tougher division, the play went back and forth. The score showed that team New Hampshire won, but the way both teams acted at the end showed the respect for each other as both teams took a group picture at the end of the game. "Just no matter what its always great sportsmanship. I play other sports in high school and a lot of the time the losing team is unhappy and it starts to get chippy but at the Special Olympics everyone is always cheering each other on and its always a happy environment," partner BFA Saint Albans Senior Sam Costs said.

The team hopes to do will in the National Games in Princeton, New Jersey. The games will be held from June 13th through the 21st.