There’s no turkeys in this group of bowlers, only a group looking for fun and friendship at the bowling alley.
The unified bowling team finished it’s season with smiles and have earned the title Antler of the Week.
According to the Special Olympics, “unified sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team.” At Elkhorn High School, Unified sports such as bowling and track are offered for student athletes to compete. The bowling season is wrapping up, and Brandy Graham is one of the athletes that participated.
“Unified bowling is where unified partners and athletes bowl together against other schools,” Graham said.
The team goes to many different tournaments and meets against multiple schools. They don’t have practices this year, but will start them next year. Most of their activities are away meets.
“We ride on a bus to get to the bowling alley and bowl six games, keeping track of scores,” Graham said.
Special education teacher Cortney Larsen said Aiden Johnson was one bowler who had a great season for the team.
“Aiden did really well, for the season,” Larsen said. “He was on our conference team and our district team, because we can only take one team for those tournaments and then we also got invited to a Bennington invite where we could only take one team so Aiden got to go for that one, as well.”
At districts, the Elkhorn High team got sixth out of seven teams, by knocking down 591 pins, but it’s less about the team place and more about the comaraderie and fun that prove beneficial to the participants.
“For our partners and athletes, it’s just a great opportunity to get to know each other and then work on our social skills and spend some time outside of the classroom,” Larsen said.
Both athletes and partners gain friendships and make many memories from Unified Sports, and anyone can join.
“We’re always looking for partners, so if anybody wants to be a unified partner we have Unified track coming up in the spring,” Larsen said. “If anybody wants to be a partner, we need people.
