The 2020 Cherokee High Special Olympics: Recognizing our Warriors

Drums thundered and horns roared with pep anthems while students and staff, socially distanced, cheered from halls and balcony of the North entrance Friday morning, October 9. The celebration was in honor of our CHS Warriors who were on their way into the North gym to participate in this year’s Special Olympic games.

Ordinarily, the county unites all high schools in the county to compete, but due to COVID-19, this event was held just for our special needs classes instead.

The Special Olympics is a 52-year-old tradition where those with intellectual or physical disabilities compete in a variety of exciting sports. “Through the power of sports, people with intellectual disabilities discover new strengths and abilities, skills and success,” states the Special Olympics main website.

The students were split up into teams of three, red, white and black, and competed hard for the first place spot on the leaderboard.

There were four rounds in total to decide the winner this year. Each round consisted of three stations, each a different game each time around.

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Round 1

The first round consisted of three games: soccer goal kicking, the waddle race, and the tennis serve.

Soccer goal kicking was where each athlete had to kick a soccer ball into a goal. Black and White tied for the most points in this category with 68 points.

Waddle race is where each athlete placed a dodgeball between their knees and had to walk to a certain distance to get a point. Black team won this category with 51 points.

Tennis serve was where each athlete has to hit a softball into bucket with a racket. White scored the most points with 55 points.

At the end of Round 1, White was in the lead with a total of 165 points.

	Soccer Goal Kicking	Waddle Race	Tennis Serve	Total
Black	68	44	21	133
Red	56	51	30	137
White	68	42	55	165

Round 2

The second round consisted of the games basketball bucket, toss and catch, and soccer bowl. Basketball bucket was where one of the athletes throwing a dodgeball into a bucket. Overall, Black came in the lead with 50 points in this game.

Toss and Catch was more tricky, but was one of the largest point gatherers in the competition. An athlete would throw the ball into the air and have to clap before they caught it. For the first throw, they would have to clap once. For the second, they would have to clap twice and so forth. White came out on top with 273 points.

Soccer Bowl was a well loved game by the students. Each athlete would kick a ball into the bowling pin with each hit being one point. Red won this category with 49 points.

After adding the previous totals with this round’s totals, Red was in the lead with an astounding 523 points.

	Basketball Bucket	Toss and Catch	Soccer Bowl	Overall Total
Black	50	136	35	354
Red	49	288	49	523
White	20	273	31	489

The Olympic Village

In between each round, the students got the chance to go out to the Olympic Village, the area outside of the gym. This is where they had the chance to get their hair sprayed, face painted, or skin tatted.

Round 3

The third round consisted of the games pogo race, bean bag shuffle and soccer dribble.

The pogo race was where each athlete would place a dodgeball in-between their knees and hop over to the wall of the gym and back. Black came out on top of this category with 68 points.

Bean bag shuffle was where the athletes had to overhand slam a beanbag into a closed off circle. White won this category with 144 points.

Soccer dribble was what it sounds like, dribbling a soccer ball to the wall and back. Many students voiced their ethusiam over this event as well. At the end, Red scored the most points in this category.

After this round, White overtook Red’s lead with a 42 point difference, making them first once again with 753 points.

	Pogo Race	Bean Bag Shuffle	Soccer Dribble	Overall Total
Black	68	122	57	601
Red	34	67	87	711
White	61	144	59	753

Round 4

The fourth and final round consisted of the games stack jacks, popcorn ball and balloon tap.

Stack Jacks mixed up the speed game of stacking cups with the workout of jumping jacks. Each athlete would have to stack cups as quickly as they could into a pyramid shape. After this, they would have to do a number of jumping jacks before disassembling the pyramid.

Popcorn ball was where each athlete had to overhand slam a ball against a spike net so that it could bounce into a bucket. White won this category with 144 points.

Balloon tap was where each athlete had to keep the balloon from hitting the ground. Black won this category with 318 points.

After the final round, the points were added up and White came out on top with a total of 1,125 points.

	Stack Jacks	Popcorn Ball	Balloon Tap	Overall Total
Black	60	65	318	1044
Red	40	133	303	1187
White	37	144	291	1225

We are so proud of all of our Warriors and everything they have accomplished this year!