A poster made for the Unified Basketball team, signed by MHS students to show their support for the team. Photo submitted by Stacey Sousa.
The Unified Track team is being introduced to Malden High School in the spring. Unified sports teams are for students with disabilities so that they can participate in regular activities at their school and be more involved. This gives them the opportunity to wear a Malden Uniform, ride a bus together, and play against teams from other schools.
When the idea to do this came to the administration, they all agreed to do it right away. Mr. Conefrey, the sports administration director, was one of the most involved. When asked why Unified Sports is important to Malden High School he responded by saying, “We’re very proud of being as exclusive as we can with our kids. Kids on the unified team are well known through the cafeterias and the hallways and there is a lot of kids who work with those groups of young folks. This is giving them another opportunity to be a part of Malden High School and feel like they are getting the full experience.”
The unified sports teams are different than any of the other sports teams at Malden High School or any sports team in general. “Unified sports are everything sports should be,” said Superintendent John Oteri. In an average sports team everyone is focused on winning the game so “too often teams are very heated and angry but there [at the unified basketball team] they cheer for the other team when they score too. It was what sports should be.” He mentioned the fact that one of the MHS kids made a shot so the other team came up and high fived him, something you don’t normally see during a sports game.
Since the unified sports team will not start until later on in the year when the warm weather comes, there is no real list of kids who will be on the team but some of the kids have already shown interest. Mr. Oteri said that once it really starts there will be many more kids.
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