People of all ages gathered in the gym of the Student Recreation Center on Nov. 22 to play volleyball in the Unified Stingers Volleyball Tournament. The tournament, put on by the Unified Sports Club, aimed to bring together those with and without disabilities in an active and collaborative setting.
“(An event like this) just hasn’t taken off so I’m really excited that we were finally able to get something going,” said Hannah Kipfer, assistant professor of health, physical education and recreation. “And this is a great turnout for the first event. We have a perfect environment and venue here. We have lots of space. I think it’s great for the university students that don’t take adaptive (physical education classes). This is exposure for them as well.”
Unified Sports Club planned the event in coordination with the recreation center to get the program rolling. Assistant Director of Recreation Services Craig Turner made it a goal to put events like the volleyball tournament together for the community since he started working with Emporia State 4 years ago.
“Since I got here,this has been a big part of something we wanted to do,” Turner said. “It just took time to team with the right people, get the right people in our group, and just put it together and get it going. We got there and we were able to sit down and get it done. I couldn’t be more excited.”
With experience in unified activities, Sofia VanNoy, president of Unified Sports Club, led the event’s organization. Turnout was a concern for VanNoy, who questioned whether people would actually attend the tournament. Once the event was over, VanNoy expressed surprise at how many people decided to come and play with the community at the unified sporting event.
“I thought it’d be small actually,” VanNoy said. “I don’t know, because we have so many connections, but, you hear people say yes, they’ll come. But you never know until the turnout. So I’m really happy with the amount of people that showed up today, I’m happy that everything worked out.”
With the tournament being a success, Unified Sports Club is looking forward to putting on more sporting events. That includes the 6th-annual Special Athletics Track and Field Day happening in May.
“The fire is getting bigger and I’m so excited to see people get involved, because once they hear about it, you never see somebody that says, ‘Nah, I’m good. I don’t want to be involved with that,” Kipfer said. “ (It’s) always like, ‘oh yeah, of course, yeah.’ So it’s just fun. If you don’t walk away with a smile, there’s something wrong with you.”
