Mariah Escobar 
PHOTO COURTESY MARIA TRINIDAD
The UTRGV Special Olympics Inclusion College Club and Special Olympics Texas will host the Special Olympics Texas RGV Area One Volleyball Tournament, with about five groups coming together to compete.
The tournament will take place from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday in Health & Physical Education II Gym 218 on the Edinburg campus.
The club is sponsoring the tournament as the organization “works closely together with Special Olympics Texas … here in the [Rio Grande] Valley,” said Maria Trinidad, club adviser and lecturer for the Department of Health and Human Performance.
She said Special Olympics Texas has been around for over 57 years and the Special Olympics Inclusion College Club has been working on campus for over 10 years.
“We promote inclusion, getting everybody together and being like one big family,” Trinidad said.
The goal of the organization is to serve individuals with intellectual disabilities to build a community and help them stay active by engaging in sports all year round, according to the Special Olympics Texas website.
“We serve all [disabilities] meaning their special needs … but we focus all across like children and adults,” Trinidad said.
Students practice different sports all year round as they can train for volleyball one day and a different sport the next day, according to Fernando Mora, an exercise science senior.
Trinidad said the club decides the sport athletes will compete in from a total of 14 adaptive sports.
She added this fall season the tournament will consist of both traditional and unified teams.
“The difference between a traditional team is that they are all student athletes with disabilities,” Trinidad said. “A unified team will have college students that are unified partners paired up with our individuals with disabilities playing in the teams.”
She said there will be three UTRGV students and three athletes competing in a unified team.
“[There will be] nine or 10 teams competing against each other because we have both traditional and unified teams,” Trinidad said.
Mora said the game is structured as a regular volleyball game and is accommodated to those who may need it.
“If a team is maybe full of people with hearing impairments … they’ll adjust it so, if someone is with a team that has more physical disabilities it’ll be adjusted … so it’s different depending on teams,” he said.
For more information, visit V Link or UTRGV’s Engagement Zone website.
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