Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
... the Ohio Special Olympics Basketball
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I've been involved with Special Olympics Unified Basketball for about fifteen years (and the regular Special Olympics for the twenty-five years before that). I've worked all skill levels of Unified Basketball.
For the past few years I've worked the higher skill level games. Basically just toss the jump ball to start the game, and call out of bounds. Occasionally we would have to decide if a player was skilled enough to not travel, or to not double dribble, and call the game based on that.
This year was different. Same skill level as in past years, but the kids wanted to play defense, so we let them. I honestly can't remember the last time we shot free throws in past years, but this year we lined the kids up to shoot free throws about a half dozen times, and reported non-shooting fouls a few more times.
One player seemed to dominate when he was in the game. He was a pretty good player. At one point in the game, he made a crossover move by carrying the ball to beat a defender, so I called a carry, maybe my first one ever in a Special Olympics game. I happened to be positioned by his coach, who said, "Thanks. He's been using that move all season long. I've been telling in that he's eventually going to get carrying called on him, and you were the first one to do it. Thanks".