University of Tennessee Athletics
Tennessee Hosts Sports Fest
April 30, 2017 | General
UTSports.com
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee student-athletes welcomed local community organizations to the Robert E. White Indoor Field at the Anderson Training Center on Sunday for the first-ever UT Sports Fest. The event was created and organized by the VOLeaders Academy to promote inclusion of persons with disabilities in sports.
VOLeaders, a leadership program that partners the UT Center for Leadership and Service and the Center for Sport, Peace and Society with the Department of Athletics, is comprised of 16 student-athletes representing 13 sports.
The event was started with opening speeches from members of the VOLeaders Academy, and featured guest speaker Liz Baker, a visually impaired triathlete who represented the United States at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio. Baker is a native of Signal Mountain, Tenn.
Joining the VOLeaders Academy at Sports Fest was the FUTURE program, a postsecondary education program at UT that helps young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities transition from high school to adult life, and Club Vibes, a program that assists blind and visually impaired young people in the Knoxville area.
After the VOLeaders and student volunteers were split up at different activity stations arranged on the indoor turf, participants rotated through each game, and had the chance to meet student-athletes while playing unique adaptive sports. The activities included an obstacle course, sitting volleyball, tandem cycling, soccer, cornhole, bowling, zumba dancing and tennis. Participants were also treated to an autograph session with student-athletes and a face-painting station.
Kyle Phillips, a member of the VOLeaders Academy and defensive end for Tennessee’s football team, felt the event was a great opportunity to give people a more personal look at what the VOLeaders are involved in outside of their sport.
“It’s great for us as student-athletes, just to let the community know what things we do outside of the playing field,” he said.
Phillips also said he believes that students and people with disabilities have limited access on campus, a problem the VOLeaders needed to address.
“Our class saw a big problem with (access for) people with disabilities, just with buildings not being accessible,” he said. “We just wanted to create inclusion and unity within the student-athletes and the community.”
Fellow VOLeader and Tennessee Rowing coxswain, Jennifer Davis, said she was happy to see the process of planning and organizing the inaugural event turn into a fun-filled afternoon for both the participants and student-athletes.
“This was very near and dear to our hearts,” Davis said. “We put a lot of planning into this, and we thought it was a great opportunity to see students with disabilities come together.”
