Smith School Wins For Special Olympics at Duke MBA Games

Duke University’s basketball team may have won it all in this year’s March Madness tournament, but it was a team from the Robert H. Smith School of Business that took home hardware in April’s Duke MBA Games.

Since 1989, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business has hosted an annual weekend event for teams from the country’s top MBA to take part in friendly competition alongside Special Olympics Athletes. In this years competition, MBA students from the Smith School won the first place prize, according to a press release on the Smith School website. The challenge serves as a fundraiser benefitting the Special Olympics.

The teams of 10 to 12 Full-Time MBAs are paired up with two to three Special Olympics Athletes and compete in a variety of games like bean bag toss, 50 meter dash, crab walk, tug of war, izzy dizzy bat race, brief case toss, and basketball toss, soccer kick.

“The most rewarding aspect of the Duke MBA Games experience was cheering on our Special Olympic Athletes and seeing first-hand the kind of programming that the funds we raised will go towards,” said Jason Berkowitz from the Smith team.

Smith placed first in the dance competition and the fundraising competition—both of which helped secure the team’s first place overall finish. The team’s fundraising campaign was marked with an auction which saw over $21,000 raised in a single night, making it the third straight year Smith was the largest contributor to the MBA Games’ charitable donation to the Special Olympics organization.

“The incredible generosity of the Smith community has made it possible for us to split our fundraising efforts between North Carolina and Maryland and still win the fundraising portion of MBA Games,” said Samson Ro, vice president of community development and social value for Smith’s MBA Association, “It’s a testament to how special Smith is.”

regions: Washington, DC

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