Who are the New Paltz Owlbears? We are a unified basketball Special Olympics team. This means that our team contains both players with and without developmental challenges. Our group consists of older children/teens/young adults from multiple school districts, primarily residing in Ulster county, NY (Kingston, Rondout, New Paltz, Wallkill, and Newburgh). Sessions run as skill building clinics with scrimmages played as well. We focus on teaching basic basketball abilities such as dribbling, passing, and shooting. The team provides an opportunity for exercise, socialization and confidence building. We meet every winter, January-March, typically on Saturday mornings for one hour. As opportunities arise, there are also various tournaments and skills competitions that we may participate in throughout the year.
What is a unified team? Per the Special Olympics organization:
“Special Olympics is dedicated to promoting social inclusion through shared sports training and competition experiences. Unified Sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding.”
Our team, most importantly, provides an avenue to establish an extensive social network. Friendships are forged between players in different districts. Families have the opportunity to connect and share information. For the players, confidence and enhanced social-emotional skills are important components and outcomes of teams such as ours.
In addition to the Owlbears, we encourage you to inquire if your local high school offers any unified sports. If not ask your Athletic Director about adding common offerings such as unified bowling and basketball. Unified teams provide an opportunity to build better citizens from all populations served.
**Registration has closed for the 2024 winter season. If you wish to volunteer or to be added to the mailing list for the future please submit your information below.
*Note that to play on the team you must be at least age 8. To volunteer you must be at least age 13. Thank you for your interest!
Where did the team name choice come from? Head Coach Eric Deschamps chose a name that the general community would have to get used to at first—one that would feel unusual initially. If you put time in to learn about what an owlbear is, you realize how cool and powerful it is. A lot of the time, that is what it is like when you first become a parent, family member, or friend to someone with developmental challenges.