Students at Tabor Academy sent a message of love this Valentine's Day, urging the public to avoid hateful words.

The inaugural Valentine's Day Hoops Tournament set out to combat stigma through a basketball tournament. Special Olympics athletes from around the region competed while Tabor students showed their support. The idea for the tournament, which was held at the Fish Center for Health and Athletics, stemmed from the school’s Special Olympics Young Athletes program.

Tabor senior Molly Bent, 18, a Barnstable resident, and math teacher Tim Cleary worked together to develop the program, which pairs high school students with young athletes who have developmental or intellectual impairments. The Sunday sessions provide fundamental techniques that will help the kids transition into Special Olympics programming. Special Olympics is available for athletes starting at age 8 and continues through adulthood.

“When you come, you never leave without a story that makes you smile,” said Cleary. “It’s something you look back on with a lot of fondness. A lot of students sign up again and again.”

The program paved the way for the Valentine’s Day tournament and also inspired a campaign at Tabor urging students to be cognizant of their word choices. The students aim to excise the word “retard(ed)” from casual conversation.

“I didn’t realize how much just talking about it can have an impact,” said Campbell Donley, 16, of Rochester. “Last night, I was talking with one of my friends. She was mid-sentence, about to say the word, then she said, ‘No, I shouldn’t say that.’ I thought it was great how bringing that awareness to Tabor can put it in people’s minds.”

Donley, along with a team of eight other student organizers, led the campaign and produced a video featuring the Tabor community. In addition to personal testimony from peers, athletes from Tabor’s sports teams were asked to pledge on camera that they would not use the word.

Leah Wolff, 15, of Duxbury, said she was unaware of how many individuals in her school were impacted by the word directly or indirectly until she filmed interviews for the video.

“It’s important to consider how your words affect other people, whether you know it affects them or not. You never know what someone’s been through,” said Wolff.

The video was shown about a month ago during a weekly all-school meeting, which the entire student body and faculty attends. The group hoped the video would also inspire classmates to support the basketball tournament.

There were 78 students who volunteered their time on Valentine’s Day, serving as referees, managing concession stands and keeping score. The goal of the tournament was to provide teams from around the region with a chance to compete rather than crowning an overall winner.

Liam Tierney, 23, of the Wareham Wild Vikings said the games were “more competitive,” which he liked a great deal. Because there were teams from New Bedford to Cape Cod, he said it’s easier to be matched with players of a similar skill level.

Bent, who spent much of the game zipping up and down the court, kept a watchful eye on players as a referee. She said it’s impossible to not be happy when working with athletes from the Special Olympics.

Bent hopes The R-Word Campaign and the tournament will stick with her classmates.

“Some people say ‘They’re just words. They don’t matter.’ But when you stop and think about what the R-word means when it’s being said, it’s to put someone down,” said Bent. “Now they’re associating a word that means ‘stupid’ with this group of people when that’s the complete opposite of who they are.”

Cleary said the school plans to continue its work with Special Olympics. In April, the athletes will join the Tabor students for a field day as part of the Day of Service.