Written By: Radley Theolien

Erik Sampson went to Mount Wachusett Community College, and his favorite sport is hockey. Erik has been a Special Olympics athlete for six years, and is considered a versatile athlete. He has played football, hockey, track and field, bowling and golf. To Erik, being a Special Olympics athlete means, "the opportunity to make new friends, meet people all over the state around you, getting things that you never tried before and having fun as well on top of it."

One day, Erik hopes to be a sports broadcaster on air, in front of the TV. He looks up to Steven Stamkos, Nikta Kuucherov, Andre Vaselevlesky and Branden point. Erik would like to sit down with Bob Knight, a former basketball Coach for Indiana University and Texas Tech.

‍The mission of Special Olympics MA Athlete Leadership is to empower athletes to develop communication skills and utilize their voices to assume meaningful leadership roles. As members of the Content Squad, athlete leaders were tasked with writing feature stories on each other. They were able to generate interview questions, sit down with their partner, add or alter their questions, and then put together a short form feature story.

‍If you are interested in learning more about athlete leadership, click here.