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A spirit that is not afraid

Lee County Special Olympics unified volleyball team heading to USA Games with help from Auburn fraternity

“When we were up there playing in the state tournament,” Chambliss said.

<p>Athletes Dillon Smith, Denise Andreadis and Jeffrey Barns pose with Coach Dana Stewart at the Exceptional Foundation Wednesday, June 20, 2018 in Auburn, Ala.</p>

Athletes Dillon Smith, Denise Andreadis and Jeffrey Barns pose with Coach Dana Stewart at the Exceptional Foundation Wednesday, June 20, 2018 in Auburn, Ala.

Athletes from all over the nation will flock to Seattle, July 1, for the beginning of the Special Olympics USA Games and the Auburn unified volleyball team will be present.

Lee County’s unified volleyball team was chosen because they won the Alabama state tournament. 

A unified team is made up of athletes and peer partners. For Lee County’s volleyball team, those peer partners are all brothers of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

“When we first started doing the unified sports I had to have the college students,” said Dana Stewart, the unified volleyball team coach. “They were so excited about it. The brothers would come out and do activities and practices and actually be on the teams to compete.”

The Auburn chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma, Omega Septaton, has been involved with the Special Olympics since 2014 because it is their national philanthropy.

Many of the brothers volunteer weekly with different Special Olympics teams.

“It is our philanthropy,” said Murphy Chambliss, president of Phi Kappa Sigma. “But we have some guys that have really taken it to the next level.”

Chambliss is one of the three brothers on the unified volleyball team going to the USA Games. He has been on unified teams for several sports for 3 years and has spent the last year and a half on the unified volleyball team.

He and the rest of his team are competitive and are ready to bring home the gold for Alabama.

“We have some people on the team who really don’t like to lose,” Chambliss said. “At the end of the day it’s not all about winning or losing but they’re competitive about what they can do for the team.”

All of the team’s games are important to them, but the games they will play at the USA Games are particularly important.

The USA Games are held every 4 years. 

the next step is the World Games. The National Committee chooses the teams and individual athletes based on their performance in the USA Games. 

“I remember the very first practice one of the guys [brothers] asked me ‘do we need to go easy on them,’” Stewart said. “I said ‘no, you better hope they don’t go all hard on you.’ Because they are so competitive.”

The USA Games will keep the team busy during their trip to Seattle.

The team will practice several times a day with games sprinkled throughout their schedule while they are in Seattle.

On July 5 and 6, the team will compete in their medal round games where the team pool will continue to shrink until there is a winner.

All of the volleyball games will be held at the University of Washington, where the athletes will be staying in the dorms.

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“They do different things,” Stewart said. “Like you’re not going to be busy enough with all the practices and competitions.”

When the teams are not competing or practicing the USA Games has a packed schedule with cook-outs

During their normal season back in Alabama, the team practices twice a week on Wednesday and Sunday nights.

Each year the volleyball team plays several games including the state games, which is where they were selected to represent Alabama at the USA Games.

“When we were up there playing in the state tournament,” Chambliss said. “You could see them just being overjoyed when they got a point. It was just great to see that. It proves they have that competitive edge.”

Throughout their season the athletes and brothers have bonded. They work together to help each other win every game. 

“I think the biggest thing to me is how they have bonded with these special needs athletes and work with them,” Stewart said.

Stewart knows she can ask the brothers for anything and they will put their hearts into it, she said.

“I know that I can call on them if I need help with events of any kind, and they would be there to support us,” Stewart said.

But the brothers don’t do it just because it’s their national philanthropy.

They do it because the smile it brings to the athletes' faces when they play with the brothers is almost as big as the smile on the brother’s faces.

“It is really big that we give them that opportunity to feel the competitive nature of having a sports team, having a team around you, having people to bond with,” Chambliss said.


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