Norah Carey celebrates in the Olympic Village at Villanova.
Submitted photo
Norah Carey takes a turn during the Special Olympics bocce finals.
Submitted photo
Norah Carey and Matt Jones stand in the center during the Special Olympics award ceremony.
Submitted photo
Norah Carey displays her Special Olympics gold medal.
Submitted photo
Norah Carey has found success in bocce and won a gold medal at the Special Olympics.
Norah, who has Down Syndrome, graduated from Abington Heights High School in 2022.
She participated in both Unified Bocce and Unified Track at the school. In track, she ran the 100m, 400m relay, and javelin.
“I like playing sports, so I tried it. I am good at bocce and like the competition. I enjoyed learning bocce, having fun with friends and making a lot of new friends from Unified,” she said.
Her parents are Krista and Kelly Carey. Her sister is Brynn Carey.
She is the granddaughter of Jack and Judy Evans and the late Jim and Paulette Carey.
Her mom was the head coach of the Unified Abington Heights bocce team, and her dad was the assistant coach.
“I wanted to coach Unified at Abington Heights because the previous coach went on maternity leave and did not know if Unified would continue. My other daughter, Brynn, was interested in joining the team as a partner and it was important to me for both my daughters to be teammates together in high school. Kelly and I also knew most of the athletes and parents that joined Unified since they were babies and toddlers. The team really was like a family,” said Krista Carey.
The Abington Heights Unified Bocce team competes in the Northeast Region of the Special Olympics, The team competes in 8 to 10 matches per season against Carbondale, Lakeland, Dallas, Mountain View, Wallenpaupack and Lackawanna Trail School Districts.
“I think it is very important to offer unified sports to our student body and to express inclusion wherever we can across extracurriculars,” said Enrico Mastroianni, athletic director, Abington Heights School District. “In sports, in particular, our students learn valuable life lessons such as teamwork, leadership and resilience. We are proud to partner with the Special Olympics to provide those experiences for all students within the Abington Heights community. We couldn’t be more proud of Norah of all she has accomplished while she was here in our programs.”
Norah graduated from the Career Technology Center of Lackawanna County in the Service Occupations program. This program taught her various vocational skills to be used in service industries.
She was the first student in the NEIU’s Strive program at Marywood University. She will graduate from the program in February 2025. She learns work skills and social and life skills. She works in the café at Marywood. She also does music, art and yoga and is learning food services and would like to work in a bakery.
It was Norah’s first year doing community Special Olympics bocce. She did a bocce bash with Gia Grasso from Scranton at Bloomsburg University and won second place. She won the regional tournament at DeSales University with Jannette Depamphilis from Scranton. At Desales, she qualified for states that were held at Villanova. Her partner at the state competition was Matt Jones.
“My goal when signing up for bocce was to have fun and meet new people,” she said. “I do like to win if I can. I was confident going in and proud of how I played. I had tears of joy when we won.”
“It ended up being a good partnership, and Matt and Norah really came together as a team. They had a slow start with qualifying matches as the two learned each other’s strengths. They ended up in the losing bracket, but they really gelled with each other and played great together. Saturday’s matches were some of the best rolling Norah has ever done. In the final match, she and Matt complimented each other, Norah and Matt needed to work together to roll their best performance and they did,” said Kelly Carey.
This was Roseann Polishan’s first season as a Special Olympics coach. She has been a Class A volunteer for many years. She coaches bocce in the fall and volunteers for swimming in the spring.
“Norah was the first gold medal bocce player I have coached. Many of the athletes have been participating for years in bocce and they have a blast playing and competing. I am thrilled with Norah’s success at bocce. This was her first year with the Northeast Region Special Olympics after competing with Unified Champion schools. She is a very determined young woman. She was dedicated to practicing. Her calm attitude and keen concentration were remarkable and led to her success. If you are interested and want to learn something new, go for it. Don’t give up — keep trying and working hard at it. Take small steps and break difficult down. Most of all, have fun,” she said.
“We’ve tried to treat Norah just like her sister as much as possible. You set goals high and teach your child the right path. When she met a goal, we keep pushing. You have to focus on strengths and not all the other issues as much as possible. Norah always surprises us by doing things we didn’t know she could do. create the right mindset for Norah and her teammates.to flourish. Unified is like any other varsity sport in that we are here to learn, be good humans, improve our skills and hopefully win,” said Kelly and Krista Carey.
When Norah is not playing bocce, she plays Buddy Up Tennis at Birchwood Racquet Club with her friends. She likes to go to movies with her friends and making others laugh, She snapchats, text and Facetime with her friends. She enjoys going on hikes with the family dog, Charlie, and likes singing and dancing and being with her sister.
“Norah is funny, sociable, loves to make other’s laugh and is kind to friends and family. She has always been expected to do things within the family just like her sister. We try to treat her as typical as possible which has shaped who she is. She has learned if you get knocked by something, you get back up and keep trying. We’re always blown away by her ability to move on when things don’t go her wat and try again, “said Kelly and Krista Carey.
The parents would like to thank Sue Ann Jacobs from Milford who was the head delegate at Vilanova, Tom Robison Director of Special Olympics PA Northeast Region who helped the parents become certified to coach for Regionals and Fall fast and Roseann Polishan.
