Special Olympics and One Team – Ties that Bond
For the fourth consecutive season, Turkish Airlines Euroleague stars are sharing the center-court spotlight with Special Olympics athletes before games being played all over the continent this week and next. Special Olympics is the newest partner in Euroleague Basketball’s groundbreaking One Team corporate social responsibility programme. Euroleague players and coaches gathered before tipoff before each of eight games in seven countries on Thursday to come together as One Team in support of local Special Olympians. The pre-game ceremonies continue with four more games on Friday and next week in 12 additional games, by which time Special Olympics athletes in all 24 cities where the Euroleague plays will have been spotlighted at the most-watched basketball events on the continent.
“I’m honored to contribute to One Team to promote the integration of our communities by showing solidarity today with these Special Olympics basketball athletes,” Casey Jacobsen, the captain of Brose Baskets Bamberg told a sellout crowd at Stechert Arena before last night’s Turkish Airlines Game of the Week. “I ask everyone in the basketball community to get involved in Special Olympics activities and promote the acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities.”
Special Olympics, one of the world’s leading non-governmental organizations using sport as a tool for positive social change, has become Official Partner of One Team, which uses the power of basketball for the integration of our communities. This partnership will see One Team and Special Olympics work together on a number of initiatives that include impact through on-the-ground sport and social development projects, skills exchanges and mutual support. One Team is designed to use sport and social development as a means to achieve positive social change against a range of issues. Gender equality, substance abuse, physical or intellectual disabilities and community cohesion are the four specific topics that the program covers.
Special Olympics is a non-profit organization that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-style sports for more than 3.2 million people with intellectual disability worldwide. Special Olympics promotes respect, acceptance, inclusion and human dignity for people with intellectual disabilities through sport. Besides offering their star power to lift up Special Olympians, Euroleague players share a strong bond with each of the athletes being honored this week and next: a passion for basketball.
As one of the Special Olympics athletes who stood at center court with Euroleague players this week said: “I would like to thank everyone for supporting us because basketball is my greatest love.”
Courtesy Euroleague