MUSCATINE, Iowa–Sept. 7, golfers from Special Olympics Muscatine and the wider community hit the green together at Muscatine Municipal Golf Course for Special Olympics’ annual unified golf tournament. A morning filled with great competition and great friendships, Special Olympics Muscatine Interim Director Tim Atkins saw it as an outstanding chance to help the community get to know Special Olympics better.
In unified events, Special Olympics athletes compete together with people who do not have disabilities. In golf, Special Olympics athletes each have a partner who they take alternate shots with. Pairs can play either six or nine holes of golf. Following their golf game, the pairs with the best scores receive awards. All of the golfers also get to enjoy lunch together, which always proves a genial gathering.
This year, 40 pairs of golfers participated in the unified golf tournament. Though Atkins welcomed this return to pre-pandemic levels, he hopes to grow the unified golf tournament in the future and to provide other unified sporting opportunities. “The mission for Special Olympics is inclusion, so we need to fully integrate them in the community” he asserted.
Atkins welcomes anyone who would like to participate in unified golf in the future to email Special Olympics of Muscatine. An easy way for people to get involved with Special Olympics, people only need to make themselves available from 8:15 a.m. to about 12:30 p.m. the day of the tournament to participate. Special Olympics can even provide full sets of golf clubs to people who do not own their own. “Even if you’re not much of a golfer but you want to try it, we encourage you to come out here,” Atkins said. For those who want to support Special Olympics but not golf, Atkins welcomes volunteers to help with the tournament as well.
Sept. 13, people can come out and support Special Olympics Muscatine in another way by attending their softball game against Muscatine County’s first responders. Beginning at 6 p.m. at Tom Bruner Field, located at 2136 Oneida Avenue in Muscatine, Special Olympics softball players will face off against members of the Muscatine County Sheriff’s Office, Muscatine Fire Department, and Muscatine Police Department. A popular community event, Atkins looks to draw an even bigger turnout than before by offering it in a great venue with concessions and by selling raffle tickets for fun prizes, particularly having one lucky winner pie him in the face. “We’re trying to be more visible in the community and get more eyes on the program so more people can see what we do,” emphasized Atkins.
Atkins also considers it a great community building event, where people come together and get to enjoy some good softball and to get to know others in the community a little better. “This a great coming together of our athletes, their families, their coaches, and the first responders that do so much to keep our community safe every day,” he said. “People not only have fun, but they feel more connected to the community.”
