Webb City hosts Special Olympics of Missouri track meet

It was a fun-filled morning at the Missouri Special Olympics Track Meet at Webb City High School on Friday.

Hundreds of participants from all over the state flooded to the Cardinals’ track and field for a chance to compete.

“It’s amazing seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces, the kids interacting with other kids, having our peer helpers out, our unified partners, making friendships together,” Paraprofessional, Special Olympics coach, and event organizer Jeff Cole said. “It’s just a great day.”

More than 25 teams signed up to participate, with the number of entries surpassing 300 athletes.

“The participation’s growing,” Cole said. “Our numbers are getting bigger every year. And that’s just great to see that more kids are getting active and getting out and competing.”

When asked what his favorite event was to watch, seeing the crowd get excited for, he smiled and thought before answering, “I really like the relays and the reason I like the relays is we do get to run unified partners. We get to the regular-Ed kids with our special education kids and it’s just a great event to see them do that.”

With such a positive atmosphere at every event, Cole was adamant these athletes are learning life skills and meeting people they’ll have a relationship with for the rest of their lives.

“We’ve seen a lot of positive things with a lot of growth in our kids, getting more open, talking a lot more because they’re around other people,” Cole said. “We put them with some unified partners, which is a regular Ed student, and they make friendships that last a lifetime. Three or four years ago we had some people that we started with and they are still friends and they still contact each other.”