Unified partners are volunteers who join forces with Special Olympics athletes as teammates to help expand the outreach efforts of Special Olympics Northern California (SOSC). With more than 27,000 volunteers, SOSC provides year-round sports training and competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, offering them ongoing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate value, experience joy, and share gifts, abilities, and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community. SOSC offers 13 sports over 4 seasons, serving thousands of athletes in community and school programs in 11 counties. It also provides opportunities for athletes to improve their overall health and well-being and gain leadership skills.
People can also participate in sports by becoming a unified partner and compete alongside Special Olympics athletes in certain sports. When analyzing an athlete's history, it is important to consider the amount of training they have done, where they trained, and what kind of resources were invested so that they could participate in world-class athletics. This combination of factors is what makes it possible for athletes from different backgrounds to come together and compete. Discrimination has been eliminated and people with athletic abilities of all ethnicities have had the opportunity to play sports.
African Americans have now come to the fore in many sports. However, when they play sports, people often attribute their success to their natural athletic ability rather than their hard work and dedication. It is also important to consider the environment in which an athlete evolved. For example, if an athlete evolved in Nordic climates, such as Aleut or Eskimo populations, heat retention is facilitated by being short and robust.
When an African-American man walks around a major university campus, he is more likely to be considered an athlete or coach of an athletic team than a member of the faculty. This is because it takes just as much athletic ability to succeed in those sports as it does in baseball, basketball, and soccer. Many people believe that people of African descent in the United States have special athletic prowess. However, this is not necessarily true. It takes hard work and dedication for any athlete to succeed regardless of their background.
