ONE GOAL: Aurora schools leading the pack into Unified Sports

The scoreboard counted down the seconds of the game. The bleachers were full of enthusiastic family members and classmates cheering for the athletes while waving hand-made signs.

The athletes — some of whom were in wheelchairs, while others wore noise-canceling headphones — made their way from one end of the court to the other with the basketball. It was a tight game, with each team scoring one point after another.

On Mrachek Middle School’s unified basketball team, general education students like Remi Hernandez played with students with special needs like Porter Easton. The two have been friends since second grade and will both be going to Rangeview High School next school year. 

“Porter is a great kid, and I feel, like, not other kids know that, and they’re not really patient and don’t give the respect these kids need. And I want to be that person,” Hernandez said. 

Like Hernandez, Mary Martinez also played on a unified basketball team when she was a high school student. That experience on the court sparked her years-long passion for working with special needs children. 

“My goal was to always be a special education teacher,” Martinez  said. “And then it just evolved into being more involved in unified [sports] and trying to build [the program] for my own specific classroom.”

After working as a significant special needs teacher for about a decade, Martinez is now Aurora Public Schools’ first unified sports coordinator. It’s also the first role of its kind in the state. 

Being the first unified sports coordinator means that she and her team are writing the rules every day. Before Martinez took the helm, teachers at each school had to recruit athletes, schedule the games and fundraise for uniforms. 

“I wanted to take back the responsibility back from teachers…so they can get back to enjoying coaching, and back to the aspects of being with the kids and ensuring they have sportsmanship and great opportunities,” she said. 

Since Martinez was a peer partner on a unified basketball team, the games have stayed the same, “but in a lot of ways, we’re growing as a culture and a society.” 

When she was a peer partner, there weren’t many people cheering in the bleachers. Unified basketball was the only sport that was available. Athletes also wore T-shirts in lieu of jerseys and used toddler basketball hoops, “which isn’t what you want…and it looked silly being out there, to be honest.” 

Now, the district offers more unified sports for students: track and field, soccer, and bowling, with the latter only available for high school students. 

They use modified basketball hoops now – lightweight hoops that are a few feet tall, are age appropriate and are placed on the court under the typical hoops. These hoops allow athletes in wheelchairs to score points for their teams. 

The bleachers during the games are also full of fans. During a recent March 5 basketball tournament at Fieldhouse USA, squeaky sneakers and wheels echoed around the sports complex as 13 teams competed. Coaches, and even parents, instructed their players to pass or block a ball. Each of the athletes wore jerseys in their school colors and district leaders cheered from the sidelines. 

“Some of it is competitive, but some of it is just showcasing somebody who can barely dribble a ball, somebody [who] can make a basket that they haven’t made all year,” Chaka Sutton, vice president of sports and schools at Special Olympics Colorado. 

Special Olympics Colorado has partnered with APS for more than a decade, according to Megan Scremin, Special Olympics Colorado president and CEO. It’s the latest chapter in Special Olympics Colorado’s role in Aurora and with APS. 

Their first game was held at Hinkley High School in 1969, where more than 400 athletes participated in a one-day track and field event. 

APS and Special Olympics Colorado cemented their relationship with a memorandum of understanding, which was signed at the end of the basketball tournament. The school district officially became known as a “unified distinguished district,” meaning that the district and Special Olympics Colorado will continue to support the program. Scremin, APS Superintendent Michael Giles, APS Athletics Director Casey Powell signed the document after praising unified sports. 

“Thank you so much for your commitment to live unified, play unified,” Scremin said to the community members. “This means the world to all of us at the Special Olympics, and we’re so excited to continue growing.”

In addition to the partnership with Special Olympics Colorado, the unified sports program is also seeing more support from the local community. 

On Tuesday afternoon, Jamal Murray, a point guard for the Denver Nuggets, and representatives from UC Health, surprised unified basketball players with a donation. They each contributed $5,000, which will be used to buy equipment. 

Martinez said that she plans on buying adaptive soccer equipment, such as different sized and portable soccer goals, and uniforms for the soccer teams. 

This would be the first time getting the whole district involved with unified soccer. 

Martinez hopes to grow the unified program, not just in sports but in other aspects of school culture as well.  

Some of Martinez’s goals and aspirations as the first unified sports coordinator is to build a sustainable program, so that athletes can still play in sports if a teacher or coach leaves. She would also like to build more unified programs outside of the athletics department, like unified theater and art. 

“The backside of it, the planning, is work…but it pays off when you get to see the kids show up to the field trip that I planned or you get to see them at the basketball tournament,” Martinez said. “Being able to provide opportunities that I always wished were available when I was in the classroom is so rewarding.”