Anne Arundel County Special Olympics offers year-round sports training in most of the sports available to Special Olympics Maryland programs. All of the sports we offer are listed below by season

Training is an essential element of Special Olympics. AA County athletes are prepared physically and psychologically by completing  training prior to competing. All training takes place locally and is offered to athletes free of charge.

Special Olympics Maryland guidelines for most sports require that athletes and teams compete in 2 qualifiers in order to be eligible to participate in the State Tournament for that sport.  Team rosters must be consistent for the qualifiers and the State Tournament in order for the team to be eligible, which is why participation in team sports would take precedence for our athletes that train in multiple sports.  Example - if an athlete is playing on a softball team and training for track, that athlete should plan to attend all softball qualifiers and compete in softball at the State Tournament.  Otherwise, the softball team could be ineligible for tournaments because they do not have enough players on their roster.  The guidelines state that qualifiers should resemble the competition at State Tournaments - certified officials who are enforcing the rules, athletes in uniforms or in appropriate attire, competing against athletes that they do not normally practice with.  One qualifier should be a Super Qualifier (designated by the Maryland Special Olympics), and the second qualifier should be a multi-county competition (minimum of 3 counties) that has been sanctioned by Maryland Special Olympics.  Tenpin Bowling operates a little differently.  Our Tenpin bowlers need at least a 15 game average in order to compete in the Southern Regional Qualifier.  First place winners are eligible to compete in the State Tournament.

Special Olympics Maryland has implemented age grouping for teams, effective with the summer sports in 2010.  The age groupings that SOMD will use are  Elementary School age 8 - 11, Middle School Age 12 - 15, High School Age 16 - 21, Young Adult Age 22 - 49, Senor Age 50 and over.  Ages for athletes in the School Age groups are determined by their ages as of December 1st in the current year.  Additional groups may be possible in the 22 and over group,  depending on the numbers of adult participants.

Special Olympics also has guidelines for divisioning athletes for qualifiers and for State Tournaments.  Consideration is given to the age groupings (same age groups used for teams) and sex of the athlete, but the primary consideration is the ability level, as determined by the coaches during practice sessions or qualifiers, following the scoring guidelines for each particular sport, with scores submitted prior to the competition.  Divisions should consist of from 3 to 8 athletes or teams whose scores fall in a range of 15% between the highest and lowest scores.

It is important that athletes wishing to compete in team sports attend the first practice, to allow Special Olympics AA County to determine the team rosters for each team.  It is very difficult to change the rosters once the season has gotten underway.  For individual sports, athletes should attend practices as soon as possible, so they can be timed or scored to determine their ability level prior to the first qualifier for that sport.

Click on the sport below to get to their home pages, with training schedules, qualifiers, and directions.