Wingate, N.C.----My name is Kelsey Trabue and I’m a junior at Wingate University. I am a member of the swimming team. During this past weekend, the Wingate University men’s and women’s swimming teams hosted their eighth year of Special Olympics Swimming. For the last two years, I have been lucky enough to be able to lead this program along with my teammate and roommate Nicole Moody (Grovetown, Ga.).

With each year, I have seen our (Special Olympics) program completely evolve. We doubled the amount of athletes we have reached, with 37 registered for the 2010 season. We also made the final swim meet official. Though it is much work, it is all worth it when I see the athletes smiling faces and their improvement over the time that they are with us.

Each of our athletes was paired with a “buddy” from the swim team. The athletes learned important swimming skills, bonded with each other and most importantly, had fun. Before our meet, we had three practices to improve the athletes’ skills, endurance and understanding of the sport of swimming.

On Saturday, April 17, we had our first official Special Olympics-sanctioned swim meet that included events such as the 15-meter unassisted swim, the 25-yard freestyle, the 15-meter walk and the 10-meter assisted swim, among others. We had great success with this meet and it was really great to see the kids competing and enjoying themselves.

WINGATE UNIVERSITY

Founded in 1896, Wingate University is a private four-year co-educational institution of 2,159 students offering active learning opportunities through personalized instruction, world travel, career discovery and community service.

Wingate offers more than 40 undergraduate majors in arts and sciences, business, communication, education, fine arts, music and sport sciences. It also offers graduate degrees in business, education, physician assistant studies and sport administration. In addition, the school awards the doctor of pharmacy and the doctor of education degrees.

Bulldog student-athletes compete in 19 NCAA Division II sports. Wingate University has won the South Atlantic Conference Echols Athletic Excellence Award for the past three years.

Wingate University is ranked number three among NCAA Division II Academic All-America® producing schools in the 2000’s with 34 honorees during this millennium. Only Pittsburg State (Kan.) University and Truman State (Mo.) University have produced more Academic All-America® honorees during this time period. Wingate’s 43 Academic All-America® honorees (lifetime) is tops among all SAC schools.