Special Olympics: Games to lift the spirit
Posted: Thursday, February 12, 2009 5:36 PM
A-Rod stories got you down? Depressed by Darryl Strawberry’s revelations about the 1986 Mets in his new book? Outraged at Miguel Tejada’s guilty plea to charges of lying to Congress?
Do yourself and your battered spirits a favor. Take a cyber trip to the Special Olympics World Winter Games and remind yourself of the true value of sports. The Games have been going on all week at Sun Valley in Idaho and wrap up tomorrow. But there’s tons of video at the above link. Watch some and you’ll be amazed at how much brighter the world will appear. Or check out some of the photos at The Idaho Statesman’s website.
You won’t see juicers or cheaters. Nor will you hear anyone whine about the officials or interrupt an interview to demand a new contract. No one will try to sell you overpriced products you don’t need.
What you will see are some very special people from all over the world participating in sports for the purest of reasons. As the athletes say in the oath they take: "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
As the Paralympics were established for physically disabled athletes, the Special Olympics were founded for intellectually disabled athletes in 1968 by Anne McGlone Burke with the aid of philanthropist Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The movement is active in some 180 countries.
I was introduced to the movement more than 20 years ago at a state winter competition in New Jersey. I spent my days back then covering the New York area pro teams, and getting to know some Special Olympians and watch them compete was like being taken back to my childhood, when sports were something we did for the sheer joy of it and the playing fields were where we made lifelong friends and learned the principals of teamwork.
Don’t be mistaken. The athletes at the Special Olympics are as fiercely competitive as any top athlete in any sport. In their nook of the sports world, they’re the best of the best, and they came to Idaho to win. They may get angry when things don’t go right. They may weep after a tough defeat. But the sheer joy they take from competition is unmatched.
The Games don’t get a lot of publicity, but the participants aren’t in it for fame or money, although the applause is greatly appreciated. They’re in it because it gives people who are often shunted aside a chance to compete on a level playing field, a place where they rule their world instead of our world ruling them.
Sports are the one place where this is possible, a place where we can exist totally in the moment, where the same rules apply to everybody, where even in losing there is still the joy of having given your absolute best.
When all we watch is professional sports, it’s easy to forget that the pampered pros may be the pinnacle of human skill and talent but they are not the exemplars of the value of competition. The pros are entertaining. The athletes of the Special Olympics are inspirational.
Check them out.
