The high school has been awarded a national award from the Special Olympics to recognize its inclusionary Unified Sports program. The award was presented at the annual Unified Leadership Summit on December 9 in Hartford.

The Unified Sports program is a combined program with Avon High School. This program allows students with disabilities to participate in sports with their friends, playing soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and track and field and bowling in the spring. Practice takes place twice a week after school for athletes and partners.

Unified attends two “multi-school” tournaments for each sport in addition to scheduled individual scrimmages throughout the school year. During basketball season, they also play exhibition halftime games at both Farmington and Avon boys’ and girls’ varsity games.

“I’ve been known to be a referee at the basketball halftimes. It’s such a rewarding feeling to see these kids simply do what they love and overcome any obstacles in their lives and just play,” Athletic Director Jack Phelan said.

A handful of students from the program have been specifically chosen by the Special Olympics board for our area, which also picked which high schools received the award.

“I love playing sports with my friends. It is just so much fun,” Unified member Jay Joo said.

Along with receiving this award, the program will receive a Champion School banner. This is the first year the Special Olympics has given this award to Unified programs around the country but they are planning on continuing to give it out annually.

“We’re so proud of our outstanding program, and thankful for the Board of Education and Mrs. Grieder for supporting it immensely and giving us all the resources we need. None of this would’ve been possible without Mr. Daisy, who put the Unified program together about 15 years ago and Chris O’Connor, who brought our program to another level,” Phelan said.