Young Champions: BCSC students join together for a field day celebrating sportsmanship, inclusivity

Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. elementary students triumphantly circled the track at Columbus East High School last week during a “procession of athletes,” setting the stage for an afternoon of recreation, friendship and inclusivity.

The 250 representatives from all 11 BCSC elementary schools took part in the annual Young Champions Field Day, a culmination of a 12-week program in coordination with Special Olympics where students with disabilities are paired with students without disabilities and participate in various athletic activities.

“They get to make friendships, practice, learn together and cheer each other on,” said Rebecca Scholl, a BCSC physical therapist and one of the organizers of the event. “We work on all kinds of athletic skills: running, jumping, ball throwing.”

Students from the different schools took part in duck duck goose, soccer, long jump, shot put, a bean bag toss, obstacle courses, a 100-meter relay and other events. Students rotated in stations on the football field at Columbus East, facilitated by more that 70 student volunteers from all three BCSC high schools, according to organizers. There were 30 adult volunteers working to make the day run smoothly.

BCSC has a similar program for pre-K students called Young Athletes and Unified Sports program offerings for high-schoolers.

Jamie Speidel, another BCSC physical therapist and organizer, said their vision is to continue growing the program so there’s a continuum of opportunities for students with disabilities to participate in the activities as they get older.

Young Athletes started as a pilot program at Busy Bees where Scholl works. Seeing the impact of the program, Young Champions got started after, growing from only a couple participating elementaries three years ago, to eight last year to every school this year.

“It’s just about encouraging inclusion and good sportsmanship,” Scholl said.

Speidel and Scholl also said Jaime Miller, a third BCSC physical therapist, is also crucially involved. The three work together to assist in coordinating Young Champions programming at the schools.

Students are paired in part with the help of their own classrooms teachers who identify students they think would work well with a student with special needs.

In the 12 weeks leading up to Young Champions, students meet at least once a week after-school to take part in a specific area, whether that be jumping or throwing a ball in preparation for their visit to East.

“Any feedback I’ve gotten is how excited their kids are because they get to come to the high school,” Speidel said. “They get to show off the skills that they’ve been working for the last 12 weeks to their parents.”