HOLYOKE — The 2025 Holyoke Unified Basketball Jamboree took place on Wednesday, with six Western Mass. schools represented at Holyoke High School.
The six local teams who competed were Agawam, Greenfield, Holyoke, Southwick, Westfield and West Springfield.
“(Unified basketball has) grown a lot… a lot of schools are interested,” Holyoke athletic director Melanie Martin said. “We’re hosting three jamborees out here, there’s 18 teams (in WMass).
“More and more people are (joining) and team sizes are growing, as well. Some teams start out very small and then they build, I have our largest team that we’ve had in the last couple of years.”
The growth of unified basketball as a whole can be seen all across the state. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Leadership Coordinator Peter Smith has witnessed this growth of unified athletics firsthand.
“When we first started with this initiative back in (2016), we had about 30 schools and we ran four jamborees,” Smith said. “Now this past season, there are over 160 schools with unified basketball teams across the state and we have 19 jamborees over the past two weeks, that’s the most we’ve ever had.”
Unified basketball provides kids with and without intellectual disabilities to play alongside one another and learn what it means to be part of a team. Teams compete with one another locally throughout the fall before wrapping up the season at the jamboree.
“We had a great season,” Westfield coach Jim Sanford said. “My team is great with sportsmanship, we practiced sportsmanship on a regular basis.
“We like to share the ball and it’s all about happiness and making friendships at unified.”
Southwick coach Judi Bean highlighted the growth she had seen in her kids learning to enjoy and appreciate passing.
“Kids that used to be so happy to get the ball and they would just keep it, have also started passing to their teammates,” Bean said. “They’re really learning what unified is all about, giving everyone a chance and not just making points themselves.”
Greenfield’s first season of unified basketball has been a tremendous success. The Green Wave support traveled well and made themselves heard throughout the afternoon.
“It was a lot about teaching them the fundamentals, but also just including everybody, teaching them how to play,” Greenfield coach Josh La said. “Pass it around so that everybody gets a chance (to) shoot and put their best foot forward.
“This year we didn’t do a whole lot of recruiting… (but) next year we’re going to get a lot more students and participants and just keep the ball rolling. All the students who played this year are coming back next year and some of them are in eighth grade, so they’re going to be here for a while and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
At the end of the jamboree, representatives from each team thanked their respective coaches, the support staff and the referees for putting this season together.
“I teach (my teammates) how to work as a team, passing the ball more (and) get rebounds,” Holyoke’s Michael Valentine Jr. said. “We love working together and getting stronger as a team.
“In Transitions Academy, we work on volunteer training, we work like a whole unit… I tried out for the varsity team (but) I was out of shape, I wasn’t ready, I just didn’t know how to play basketball. But when I came here, I found a quicker way to get better. The responsibility (for) me is to take basketball more seriously and I couldn’t have done it without my teammates.”
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