COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, UTAH- Hillcrest High School’s unified soccer team had a tournament the past week at Brighton High School, competing with many other high schools from around the Canyons School District.
The first round of the tournament took place on Oct. 1 at Brighton High School. Out of the three
participating regional teams at Hillcrest, only one advanced. The first team made second place, the second team made fifth place, and the third team made fourth place.
Part two of the of the tournament took place on Oct. 8 at the RSL Training Facility in Herriman, Utah. The purpose of the tournaments is to help improve social skills, promote inclusion, create new friendships and much more among students in the Special Education program.
“My biggest thing with unified is getting the kids out of the classroom to interact with their peers in a different way.” stated teacher Rebecca Remy of the EEC classroom. “It’s not about academics, it’s about showing their sports skills and also interacting with peers in a different way. The peers get to see the students in a more casual setting and show sportsmanship and teamwork together.”
There are other unified sports that Hillcrest participates in during the school year, including basketball, flag football, and track.
Remy notes that the students prefer to play basketball over the other sports, with soccer coming in at a close second. “Both soccer and basketball are pretty equitable because you have kids who really like soccer and really like basketball.”
“It also gives students with disabilities the chance to participate on a team. They most likely would not have the opportunity to participate on a regular soccer or basketball team, so it gives them a chance to showcase the skills that they have.”
Sophomore Yadiel, who is a player on the Hillcrest Unified Team also agrees that unified sports help him feel more included. He stated, “It’s a very fun sport to play. I can interact with different teams and then play and just have fun.” He also stated that he has made many new friends through unified. Some from Hillcrest who aren’t peer tutors, and other students from schools around the district.
When Unified Sports first started about 7 years ago, Hillcrest was one of the very first schools to do basketball. At the time, since there were very few schools, they would play against college teams.
The hope for the future is to continue to spread the news about Unified Sports around the country and gain more participants.