{"id":78126,"date":"2024-03-25T15:45:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T20:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=78126"},"modified":"2024-03-25T15:45:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T20:45:29","slug":"kansas-special-olympics-meet-on-fhsu-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=78126","title":{"rendered":"Kansas Special Olympics meet on FHSU campus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Story by JOHN BILLINGER Photos by RAEGAN NEUFELD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Special Olympics State Basketball and Cheerleading tournament took place at Gross Memorial Colosseum this weekend. Activities started on Friday and continued until Saturday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Special Olympics Kansas CEO John Lair, the organization provides sports and opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities. The group started in 1970, and since then Lair said they are extremely proud of their continued growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lair<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Lair has spent 32 years with Special Olympics, 25 of which were spent as a coach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine my life without Special Olympics in it,\u201d Lair said. \u201cI feel bad almost on some days because I get to hang out with the greatest athletes and some of the greatest people you\u2019ll ever meet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year, the number of athletes in the programs grows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a young athletes program,\u201d he said. \u201cOfficially you have to be eight years old to be a Special Olympics athlete. So they just need to have a physical done and register through a local team or individually. We have about 6500 athletes state-wide that we provide services for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Revilla<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Throughout the year, different competitions take place in cities across the state including Wichita, Manhattan, Dodge City, and Pittsburgh. Each year, they have 20 tournaments that cover about 20 different sports. These sports include basketball, track, flag football, cheerleading, snow shooting, and bacci bowling. The average turnout for the athlete at each of these venues includes 1,300.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout these tournaments and meetings, there are various people who volunteer. Among them is Layla Revilla, who has been volunteering for Special Olympics for three years. Her duties for Friday and Saturday were to help athletes sign in and get them to where they needed to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Revilla, there is a personal connection to her volunteering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI specialize in Special needs, and getting to help here is really nice,\u201d she said. \u201cI am currently working as a CNA for people with special needs. One of the people I take care of is doing Special Olympics today, and I\u2019m here to help support him and the whole organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next big Kansas Special Olympics event will be on Wednesday at the Girard Activity Center in Girard. Attendees will compete in a Cornhole tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Athletes competed in team and individual skills competitions during the 48th Special Olympics Kansas Basketball Tournament in Hays.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Southern Wind competes in the team skills competition on Saturday.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Southern Wind receives medals for the teams skills competition.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Blue Thunder team from Saline County celebrates their performance in the team skills competition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Wichita Independents team celebrates their performance in the team skills competition.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tournament games took place at Gross Memorial Coliseum, Cunningham Hall and the Hays Recreation Commission. \n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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McPherson plays defense against the Eagles of Reno County.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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According to SOK Senior Vice President of Sports Tim Rehder, more than 500 athletes from 50 teams and 18 organizations competed in the state tournament.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A Blue Thunder athlete shoots the ball against the Storm of Great Bend.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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According to Rehder, teams practice and compete in other tournaments anywhere from 10 to 14 weeks before the state tournament.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cFor the most part, it gives them a chance to show off their skills and everything they\u2019ve developed at a bigger tournament than they\u2019re used to playing at,\u201d Rehder said.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A Storm player looks to make a move against the Blue Thunder.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cOver the years, they\u2019ve gotten to know some of the other athletes,\u201d Rehder said. \u201cSomeone from McPherson may recognize someone from Plainville, so that\u2019s kind of neat to see.\u201d\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A Wichita Independents player protects the ball against Dodge City.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Wichita Independents team plays offense against Dodge City in Saturday\u2019s tournament.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Hutchinson Hawks and Hays Buffaloes tip-off in a game on Saturday.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Hays Buffaloes try to get the ball across half court against defensive pressure.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Hutchinson Hawks run an offense.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A Hutchinson Hawk player drives the ball on offense.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A Hays Buffalo pushes the ball down the court.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story by JOHN BILLINGER Photos by RAEGAN NEUFELD Tiger Media Network The Special Olympics State Basketball and Cheerleading tournament took place at Gross Memorial Colosseum… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":78145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,3398,11],"tags":[14981,15646,14226,5202],"class_list":["post-78126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-john-billinger","tag-kansas-special-olympics","tag-raegan-neufeld","tag-special-olympics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/3_23_24_Special_Olympics_004-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1712&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78150,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78126\/revisions\/78150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}