CHSAA Participates In Special Olympics Colorado’s 2023 Youth Summit

AURORA – The Colorado High School Activites Association attended Special Olympics Colorado’s Youth Summit at the Denver Broncos Centura Health Training Center on Friday, and they were represented by Rashaan Davis — CHSAA Assistant Commisioner and Keynote Speaker for the event.

The event boasted a record number of attendees, as more than 1,000 different students and educators showed up for the Youth Summit.

Educators discussed their level of confidence in themselves as youth leaders as a warm-up exercise, and speeches soon got underway with some welcomes and introductions, before Davis’ keynote speech began.

“The one thing I know about leadership, is that it starts with belonging,” Davis expressed. “Whether it’s Special Olympics Colorado or it’s CHSAA, we want to make sure every kid has an opportunity to participate. If you don’t understand what an opportunity means — to me, it’s everything. We can’t just have opportunities for kids to participate, we have to give students voice as they participate. And if you’ve got voice, then you can tell us what’s really great or you can tell us what’s not working, and then we can make those changes”

Davis also talked about the importance of teamwork and sportsmanship within unified athletics and activities, and highlighted how the voice of the students helped catalyze conversations about adding championships in unified flag football and unified e-sports for CHSAA.

After Davis’ speech, a day of fun, games, laughs and smiles kicked off.

The mass of attendees then split into two separate groups.

One group remained seated and began working on a t-shirt design competition while some members of the Youth Activation Committee gave speeches and answered questions about how to be a helpful advocate and ally to people of different abilities. Meanwhile, the other group went to the other end of the Centura Health Training Center and engaged in some ice-breaking and team-building games in smaller groups.

After the two groups engaged in their activities for 45 minutes, the summit reconvened for a unified showcase and free time for the student attendees. Unified activities like e-sports and flag football, and even games like cornhole and connect-four were set up for free time.

The summit broke for lunch following the free time, but soon reconvened in their two separate groups. This time, the two groups flipped places, ensuring that every student was able to participate in both activities.

The day then ended with some closing speeches, as well as a call for action, asking that all the attendees take today’s lessons of inclusion, compassion, teamwork, and opportunity, and apply it to their own lives.