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CLEARFIELD — Loud cheers from fans and whoops and hollers from eager athletes echoed through the Clearfield High School gymnasium Wednesday.
This competition, though, wasn't a typical high school sporting event — it was the Davis School District's first Special Olympics Utah Unified Sports tournament.
"It's just awesome," Canyon Barrett, a senior student athlete at Clearfield High School, said.
The basketball tournament is part of Utah first lady Abby Cox's "Show Up" initiative to expand the Unified Sports program at Utah schools.
Unified Sports is an inclusive sports program that combines a proportionate number of Special Olympics Utah athletes with partners without intellectual disabilities on teams for training and competition.
"I haven't been as excited as I am today in many, many years," said Tim Best, healthy lifestyles director for the district.
Wednesday's tournament was the result of a collaboration between Cox, the Davis School District and the Davis Education Foundation. A $20,000 donation from the Murdock Family Foundation helped initiate the Unified Sports program in Davis School District.
The first lady talked about her childhood, when three of her best friends had Down syndrome.
"I watched their struggles," Cox said. "I watched how my community rallied around them and I watched how they became the leaders of our community. They became the leaders of kindness, the leaders of connecting with people, the leaders that taught us how to be kind."
They became the leaders of kindness, the leaders of connecting with people, the leaders that taught us how to be kind.
–First Lady Abby Cox
The experience led Cox to pursue a degree in special education, forging the path for initiatives like Show Up.
"After sitting down with the first lady and having a conversation with her, we committed (to Unified Sports) full-on and really promote inclusion and sportsmanship and physical activity and all the wonderful things that come around this program," said Jodi Lunt, executive director at the Davis Education Foundation.
"The energy in the room is outrageous," Lunt said. "It just reminds us in education why we do what we do. It's about the one, it's about every student and all students feeling included ... feeling that there is a place for them."
With speakers out of the way Wednesday, the podium was removed, the hoops were lowered and the games were on.
The athletes were ready, too.
"I'm really excited, you just have to do some defending and some shooting and some dribbling," Barrett said prior to tip-off.
A big reason that the Unified Sports program is possible, Cox said, is the partners without disabilities who are willing to give their time to coach and play alongside the Special Olympics athletes.
"It's been really awesome to see athletes and partners come in and just work together. It's been really fun to just watch them come together and play a sport and see how involved and included they are — that's the most important thing," said Talisha Thorson, a teacher and coach at Clearfield High School.
Matias Anthony, a senior at Clearfield High School, is one of the partners whom Cox praised for their involvement.
"I'm just here to help these kids learn the game," he said, adding that his favorite aspects of the program are seeing the smiles on athletes' faces whenever they score a basket and hearing their families cheering for them from the stands.
"These kids are awesome, you know. They're smart and they're my friends, so I love them," Anthony said.
