Unified Sports Open Doors, Build Connections for NC State Students, Local Community

The NC State Wellness and Recreation Center’s Intramural Sports programs aim to foster “excellence and student success through the development of student staff and participants.”

The importance of one of these programs, is felt far beyond NC State. Unified Sports is a Special Olympics program that joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. 

At NC State, Special Olympics North Carolina Unified Sports are offered, with flag football in the fall and basketball in the spring. Special Olympics North Carolina brings athletes to NC State, who participate in these sports alongside student partners. 

Charlie Buss, a fourth-year student studying fashion and textile management and a sports programs assistant for Wellness and Recreation, has always had a passion for working with Special Olympics North Carolina, and has taken pride in reviving this program for NC State. 

“It means everything to me,” Buss said. “It’s my biggest passion that I’ve had since being in this position. I was really grateful to be able to lead this. It’s just always been something that has impacted me, and I want the athletes to always feel included. I love it.” 

Last semester, Buss worked with Nathan Brookins, Special Olympics North Carolina’s senior director of sports, to help bring the Special Olympics Club, which was inactive throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, back to NC State, and resume the Unified programs. 

Brookins said that the benefits Special Olympics North Carolina has seen from the partnership with NC State have been manifold. 

“It brings an opportunity for the athletes and the local community for those individuals to go onto a college campus and get that part of a college experience,” Brookins said. “A lot of our Special Olympics athletes don’t go to college and have that college experience. So the club really works to offer that programming, providing that opportunity for these individuals to be a part of NC State in some kind of way.”

Buss’ mother is a long-time NC State Wellness and Recreation employee and alum, and Charlie has been able to work to support her passion at a place that’s been familiar to her since the age of five. 

“This place is like a home for me, so it’s really amazing that they’ve worked with me to create this fun experience for this community,” Buss said. “To see how much it’s grown, it’s a full-circle moment.” 

“This place is like a home for me.”

Harrison Ashworth, one of the Special Olympics Club’s leaders and a first-year student studying business, was also instrumental in bringing the club back to NC State. 

Ashworth also has a personal connection to the Special Olympics community, explaining that his father told him and his siblings about his aunt, who had Down syndrome, and passed away when Ashworth’s father was 14 years old. 

“I never got to meet her, but it’s always something that’s always been touching for my dad, and it affected him very much growing up,” Ashworth said. “He wanted to instill in us to give back to the community, to help people with intellectual disabilities, never make them feel like an outsider. Growing up, my three siblings and I all did it through everything. My mom and dad pushed for us to help out, they were out there too helping out. It’s always been in my life, and it will always be in my life.” 

Brookins explained that the benefits go beyond the Special Olympics athletes, and he often sees an even greater impact on the NC State students who participate in the programs as partners. 

For these students, participating in Unified “opens up their world,” and, in many cases, is the first time they’ve interacted with and learned about people with intellectual disabilities. 

Ashworth, who is among these student partners playing in the games, said that he enjoys interacting with the Special Olympics athletes, and helping give them a chance to socialize. 

“The authentic emotion that you see out there is incredible,” Ashworth said. “It’s real, true joy. It really just warms your soul to see people having genuine fun and being able to help bring that to them is just incredible.” 

Buss and Ashworth both noted the program’s growth in the last year, from being unable to field enough partners for 7-on-7 flag football on two fields, to a group message featuring over 60 interested participants. 

Each year, Special Olympics North Carolina holds a Unified flag football rivalry series, featuring games between the Unified teams at NC State, UNC and Duke. This past fall, NC State hosted the series on Miller Fields, featuring cheering crowds, and appearances from both mascots Mr. and Ms. Wuf and the NC State Dance Team. 

“I’m very proud of that,” Buss said. 

Brookins noted that the Unified programs at schools like NC State give Special Olympics stronger visibility, and boost participation numbers. 

“It brings a lot of excitement for the program as a whole,” Brookins said. “It’s opened up a lot of opportunities for new Special Olympics athletes to join. There are a lot of individuals out there who maybe would not do Special Olympics if it wasn’t Unified and if it wasn’t for something like this. Our mission is to drive and give year-round sports opportunities to these athletes. That’s what this program is doing. You put a name behind it like NC State, it’s a large university. You have a lot of folks that have grown up as NC State fans. They love being engaged with the university in this way.” 

The hope going forward is for NC State’s Unified program to continue expanding, with Ashworth saying he plans to spend the summer planning additional events for the Special Olympics Club. 

Though Buss is graduating in May, she is looking forward to continuing to watch the program expand going forward.

“We get to see fresh new faces, and they get to enjoy it,” she said. “Their skills are growing, too. I had a mom come up to me and say ‘I appreciate you so much, I’m so glad to see the growth that this has had and how my son is doing.’ I’m not ready to let go, but it’s just been great to see the way this program has grown, and I’m excited to see it keep growing.” 

This post was originally published in DASA.