Special Olympics come to Norwich

On Saturday, Oct. 17, Norwich University held the Special Olympics for people with special needs, according to Erica Rate.

The school has put on this event for some time now, usually doing one in the fall and another in the spring.

"It took place here at Norwich University, we used the football field and soccer field," said Rate, a 22-year-old senior physical education student from Waymouth, Mass.

Rate, having helped out with this event since her freshman year, has a good understanding of what the program does and who it's aimed for.

"It's geared towards athletes with special needs, ages 8 years or older," Rate said.

The school's physical education program really likes to get involved with this event, due to the experience it gives the students helping, guiding and teaching others for their future careers.

"Our senior seminar class called Readings in Physical Education ran mostly everything," Rate said. It is a requirement for this class, but Rate has expressed her own personal interest in being involved in it regardless.

For this event to run smoothly, a lot of thought, preparation and effort goes into it.

"It was just a day, but we've been doing work on it since the end of September," Rate said.

Planning was not entirely easy either.

"We had to move locations a couple times," Rate said.

It was also a full working day for the students, who gave up their Saturday to be at the Special Olympics.

"Playing started at 10 a.m. and ceremonies went till about 4 p.m., but we worked 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.," Rate said.

After all the time spent planning this event, it ran pretty well, Rate stated. The two main activities were a big hit, she said.

"It was a soccer Special Olympics. There are two divisions, a unified and non-unified, and they played round robins," Rate said.

In addition, she said, "There was also individual skills competition."

The turnout that day was rather large.

"This year we had a total of 16 teams of five versus five, which is a significant amount," Rate said.

Not only did a big group participate, but many people came out to help as well.

"We had a ton of volunteers this year. Northfield High School sent 30 students," Rate said.

With results showing a good number of people getting involved and taking part in the program, it becomes more apparent why Rate shows such an interest in this day.

"It's really rewarding to help those people out any way you can," Rate said.