Anybody trying to garner donations or survive as a non-profit organization right now knows: it’s tough to make it in this economy. But there are some organizations and some events so important that people pull together and make it happen: the Special Olympics Summer Games is one of those events. They reduced the number of days of competition from three to two, but nobody seemed to mind as over 1,100 athletes were able to live, eat, and compete on the Long Beach State campus, at no cost to their families.
After a month of overcast skies, even the weather was generous on Sunday, the final day of competition. There’s a lot of big events on Saturday, but Sunday is all about the athletes competing and interacting. The big names that are still around mostly do their volunteer work quietly (like Misty May-Treanor handing out medals in the Pyramid, or Marc Spitz and son volunteering at the Aquatics center), so the athletes themselves get plenty of attention.
And deservedly so—only at a Special Olympics basketball tournament do you: see players regularly cherry-picking on defense, but never on offense; see an injured player leave the court to applause not just from the crowd and his teammates, but from every player on all four courts as well; see a team that just lost the first-place game join in the raucous celebration of the winners; see handshakes and smiles after every on-court blow-up or disagreement. It could sound cliché, but truly, professional athletes could take a lot of cues from these competitors, for whom the very act of competing is compensation enough.
As Special Olympics Southern California President Bill Shumard put it during the closing ceremonies, “The color of your medal or ribbon signifies how that event went—but you are all winners.”
Of course, what Shumard, and everyone else who’s spent time around these athletes knows, is that their heightened appreciation for the value of competition doesn’t make them less competitive. A lot of the athletes competing put in serious time training or practicing their sport, and when they take the field, they’re dedicated and focused. I’ve watched more than my share of sports over the last year, and I can assure you it’s a mix of competitiveness and sportsmanship you won’t find anywhere else.
Jenna Barnes, who won Most Inspirational Athlete this year, typifies that attitude. Barnes just graduated from middle school, and will attend Golden Valley High School next year, where she’ll compete on the swim team. On Saturday and Sunday, she swam for the cycle, competing in four events and winning a first, second, and third place medal as well as a fourth-place ribbon. They aren’t the only awards she’s taken home this month, as she also got an award for fitness from her middle school, along with three academic awards.
“We appreciate,” said SOSC founder Rafer Johnson, “Not just what she did here, but in the 364 days before.”
Barnes and the other athletes represent, and represent well, the wonderful Oath of the Special Olympics Athlete: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me brave in the attempt.” Words everyone can aspire to uphold and fulfill.
After the Closing Ceremony, the remaining athletes and families joined hands and listened to a fellow athlete sing “What A Wonderful World.”