Manhattan Special Olympics unified volleyball finishes 2nd at USA Games

Jun. 15—Manhattan Special Olympics athletes walked away from the Special Olympics USA Games in Orlando with silver medals around necks and a lifetime's worth of memories.

Manhattan's unified volleyball represented the state of Kansas and finished second to Indiana. But, according to head coach Kim Schnee, the most memorable portion of the trip occurred after the competition had ended.

The team got its first win of the meet over the team from Indiana and was scheduled to play them again in a medal match to decide first or second in their pool.

After Indiana beat them in the medal match, the two teams decided — in the name of sportsmanship — to share the gold medal. The officials running the event were unsure initially, but both teams were steadfast and eventually won them over.

"We came up with the idea together," Schnee said. "It really topped everything off. I had to explain it I don't know how many times to convince the people in charge. We were going to do it no matter what. They made it work. When they announced it, the crowd went crazy. People were saying it was history-making."

Unified volleyball involves an equal number of competitors with and without intellectual disabilities on each team. Events in Kansas require the majority of the touches in a unified volleyball match to come from the athletes with intellectual disabilities and not their partners.

Schnee and the team learned once they got to Orlando that those rules weren't on the national level and other states were playing with differently, allowing the partners to dominant the matches while the other athletes stood around and were less involved.

After several losses, Manhattan played Indiana, a team that had a similar philosophy when it came to the incorporation of the athletes with intellectual disabilities. A quick friendship sparked between the two teams.

"The whole idea of unified is not the have partners run the things and sprinkle in some athlete, it's to really play unified," Schnee said. "Indiana showed great sportsmanship."

Schnee said that the two teams spent time together that evening at Animal Kingdom at Disney World, and they've all already become friends on Facebook.

The experience touched Schnee and Manhattan's athletes deeply and became an immediate bright spot in their Special Olympic careers.

"(Our team) has been practicing together once a week since last June and twice a week leading up to the USA Games," Schnee said. "We would do things together, go out to eat and have fun times. It wasn't until this trip that I felt like we really gelled together as a team. It was probably the highlight of my Special Olympics life so far. I've been coaching for 39 years and there's been a ton a great moments but this one probably tops them all."

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