Inclusive Sports

Across cultures and eras, sport has functioned as a social institution— a place where belonging is made visible through uniforms and rituals, where identities are affirmed through teams and competition, and where participation signals who is “in” and who counts. For much of modern history, people with IDD were excluded from this space. They were relegated to spectatorship or, worse, forced into institutionalized invisibility based on the assumption they did not have the physical or mental capabilities to participate and contribute. The emergence of inclusive sports is, at its core, the story of how that assumption was challenged.

Inclusive sports are those that are open and accessible to people with disabilities. The concept embodies several structures and approaches. At one end is the model where all participants have disabilities, such as Special Olympics traditional sports programming or many Paralympic developmental pathways. At the other end is the model where athletes with disabilities participate alongside peers without disabilities with minimal or no modification. Between these endpoints lie various adapted and inclusive models that modify rules, environments, or supports to enable participation while preserving competitive integrity, according to the “Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society.” (doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197519011.013.46) These models focus on adapting the environment and normalizing all types of participation and ability; the focus is not on disability, according to Joseph Winnick and others in “Adapted Physical Education and Sport.” This spectrum offers numerous options for athletes with disabilities of all kinds to access and participate in sport. Having started with institutionalization and deep stigma and prejudice, how did we get to a place where people with disabilities have such dignity and choice in how they engage in sport?

The Beginning of Sport as Therapy

Early efforts framed sport primarily as therapy, as a means to restore function rather than as a social institution that fosters belonging. Modern disability sport has roots in post‑World War II veteran rehabilitation, most notably through the work of Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, whose use of sport at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the 1940s contributed to the development of the Paralympic Games (www.paralympic.org/ipc/history). This was the catalyst for what we have today. But even before that, athletes with disabilities were competing in the Olympic Games (z.umn.edu/391-ac2) or creating their own organizations, such as the Deaf Games and the National Sports League for the Blind (doi.org/10.4997/jrcpe.2018.213). Much of this early development was happening internationally in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, but soon a parallel but distinct story was unfolding in the United States.

In the early 1960s, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, disturbed by the marginalization of people with IDD, hosted a summer camp at her Maryland home. Camp Shriver was radical not because it pursued elite competition, but because it asserted a simple truth: people with IDD deserved joy, challenge, and visibility through sport, according to the Special Olympics website (z.umn.edu/391-ac3.) The first International Special Olympics Games were held in 1968 in Chicago, drawing approximately 1,000 athletes from the United States and Canada. At a time when institutionalization of people with IDD was still common, the Games publicly challenged assumptions about ability and worth. As the movement expanded in subsequent decades, globally and in the United States, it played a crucial role in establishing legitimacy for athletes who had long been excluded from mainstream sport.

As disability rights frameworks gained prominence globally—particularly following the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—expectations around participation shifted. Dignity and choice came to the forefront of the discussion, and merely being present wasn’t enough, as noted in 2018 by Florian Kiuppis in Sport in Society (doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2016.1225882). Thanks to self-advocates and scholars studying the various models, inclusive sports began to be understood not only as access to sport, but as access to shared social spaces where relationships and mutual understanding could develop. This broader framing set the stage for the next evolution in inclusive sport.

Unified Sports® emerged at scale in the United States in 1989 in response to a growing recognition that parallel sport systems, while valuable, were insufficient on their own to address social isolation and stigma (z.umn.edu/391-ac4). Unified Sports intentionally brings together athletes with and without IDD on the same teams, training and competing as peers. The motivating factor was not merely participation, but developing relationships and fostering attitude change. Unified Sports reframed competition as a shared endeavor and emphasized teamwork, reciprocity, and mutual respect through social interactions among teammates. Critically, Unified Sports is not defined solely by inclusion. Quality indicators include balanced age and skill levels, equal numbers of athletes with and without IDD, meaningful roles, trained coaches, and intentional structures that prevent tokenism (z.umn.edu/391-ac5). Without these elements, integrated teams risk reinforcing hierarchies rather than dismantling them.

Unified Sports and, more generally, inclusive sports are not without debate. Some argue that inclusive sports (especially policies within inclusive sports organizations) maintain ableist norms for performance or place undue pressure on athletes with disabilities to conform. Writing in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living in 2025 ( doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2025.1641914), authors Kim Wickman and Malin Andersson shared their analysis of a Swedish initiative to bring inclusive practices to national sports organizations. Participants noted challenges in dismantling entrenched ableist cultures, which limited possibilities for change. While most adapted and inclusive sport models prioritize bringing athletes with and without disabilities together, these models do not work for everyone, and there are other options for people with disabilities to participate and compete with other people with disabilities. Some people find that those approaches promote segregation, however, a longstanding criticism of traditional Special Olympics sports programming. A 2008 article by Keith Storey in Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, for example, details these criticisms (doi:10.2511/rpsd.33.3.134). Kiuppis’ article in Sport and Society argues that the focus should always be on dignity and choice.

Therein lies an important tension: equity versus equality. Equality emphasizes sameness—everyone follows the same rules and does or gets the same thing—while equity focuses on fairness, acknowledging that different athletes may require different conditions to participate meaningfully. Inclusive sport, then, is not a single destination but a landscape of options shaped by individual preference, context, and support.

In recent decades, Special Olympics has broadened that landscape into schools and communities across the globe, opening up access and choice.

Unified Sports Bring Meaningful Inclusion

Special Olympics Pennsylvania, for example, has been a leader in bringing sports to people with IDD, particularly through Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools® programming. Foundational to Unified Sports in Pennsylvania and throughout the world is creating sports environments that are authentic and in which all participants personally thrive through their unique talents. In Pennsylvania, promoting meaningful inclusion is the north star that guides strategy development. Every member of a Unified Sports team is treated as an equal peer, while also being embraced for their distinctiveness. People with IDD become empowered through this experience, people without IDD become enlightened, and both groups become advocates for a more inclusive world, where diversity is valued. Both groups develop better communication, socialization, collaboration, confidence, and leadership skills. This helps them excel in the community and workplace.

In high schools, where interscholastic Unified Sports teams are regarded on the same terms as the other interscholastic teams, special education and general education students proudly represent and wear their schools’ uniforms, many for the first time. Many parents of special education students become emotional when sharing that they never envisioned their son or daughter becoming a varsity athlete.

The tapestry of a sports team is interwoven as different personalities learn to coalesce. Through this process, friendships and stronger, sustainable relationships emerge. Nancy Lezynski, whose son Kevin participated in his high school’s Interscholastic Unified Sports Track and Field team, talked about the first time she saw this happen.

“Kevin was fortunate to attend a school that was very welcoming and valued inclusion. Classmates would say hi to him in the hallway and were kind and respectful,” Nancy said. “After he joined the Unified track team, though, his life transformed, and he began having true and genuine friendships with the general education students. One day, the doorbell rang, and when I opened it, several of his teammates greeted me and asked if Kevin was home. They told me that each week, they would gather at a fast-food place and hang out for a while, sharing conversations and good times. ‘See you later Mom, I’m going out with my friends,’ Kevin said as he ran out the door. At that moment, my eyes filled with happy tears and my heart with joy. It was the first time in Kevin’s life that anyone without a disability who was not a family member invited him to join them.”

It’s remarkable to see the evolution of Unified Sports and how it became a successful facilitator of social inclusion.

When Unified Sports was conceived and then developed by its founder, Beau Doherty, in the early 1980s, there were no sports programs for people with and without IDD practicing and competing together. “At that time, I was struck by the extraordinary loneliness of people with IDD and their lack of connection to people without disabilities,” said Doherty. “It was tough to see how people with IDD were being treated, at a time when many of them were leaving institutions and trying to fit into society. Sports is the best mechanism to bring people together, and I felt Unified Sports could create an environment of belonging, where everyone was included and connected.”

While it may have started as a place where people simply belong, Unified Sports has developed into a powerful catalyst of social inclusion, creating communities where everyone is valued.

Inclusive sports today are the product of decades of experimentation, advocacy, and courage. From hospital gyms to backyard camps, from segregated leagues to Unified teams, the field has expanded not by replacing one model with another, but by making room for many. The challenge ahead is not to choose one model over another, but to sustain ecosystems where participation, preference, and dignity remain central. Inclusive sport began as a challenge to exclusion and has since shown us that sport can be a powerful site of human connection. It can reframe what we imagine to be possible when all are given opportunities. It can change hearts and minds.