Coaching Toward Independence
ENLOW GUIDES SPECIAL OLYMPIANS TO SUCCESS
Sharyn Enlow of Anderson Middle School has been teaching special education for 25 years, 23 of that in McDonald County. She has been coaching Special Olympics for 17 years.
She has a brother who has Down’s Syndrome, and she started helping with Special Olympics when he was young. Then she started volunteering when she was in college, she said. When she came to McDonald County Schools someone else was in charge of the Special Olympics program, and then she took over the coaching 17 years ago. She is the only coach.
In McDonald County, Special Olympics has three sports — bowling in the fall, basketball in the winter and track and field in the spring. In other areas, many other sports are played, Enlow said, including flag football, swimming, equestrian sports, skiing, powerlifting and bocce.
The teams in McDonald County range in ages from 10 to 15 years, in track the ages go up to 20 years, she said. This year she had 12 for basketball.
“We play by MSHSAA rules, but we have modifications, like the kids
they get called on,” she said.
Athletes can compete under her guidance until they are 21, she said.
The bowling teams are the Mustang 10 Pins. They compete as single bowlers. The team has a wheelchair bowler who uses a ramp to roll the ball, she said. She noted the students bowl against someone with a similar disability to theirs.
“It’s all about teaching independence. They are learning. It’s not someone doing it for them,” she said.
In track and field there are a few different events. They throw a “mini-jav” with what looks like a Nerf tip, she said. There are students who throw four-pound and eightpound shot puts. They run 100-meter and 200-meter dashes and a four by 100 relay.
Enlow explained some of the challenges of working with special athletes.
“You have to break things down, work on eating right, staying healthy. We try to work on life skills like good hygiene. That becomes part of our practice. They don’t always like to listen,” she said. “Some of them have never been on a team. Basketball is a big one to work on the teamwork. It’s learning to break it down into smaller pieces. A regular team you could go out and teach them a bunch of plays, but we may be working on one play for the whole season.”
She continued, “A couple years back we had one with cerebral palsy. He loved to run the 200, but he was struggling with his balance. You have to approach it differently than training regular athletes.”
Enlow said one of the things she gets out of coaching Special Olympics is that she gets to do things with kids that she cannot do in the classroom, such as take them on trips.
“When I do these things I get to see them be successful at ordering for the first time in a restaurant or staying for the first time in a hotel. So I get to see them enjoy those things that we take for granted,” she said.
Regarding teaching special education, she said, “My favorite thing is I love teaching kids to read. Kids, because of their disability, need that extra time, and if I can get them to a third- or fourth-grade reading level in middle school, I’ve been successful. Maybe they can do some things on their own and someone won’t take advantage of them.”
She said the Special Olympics teams in Southwest Missouri are like a family.
“The coaches all know each other. The kids are friends off the court and they can come on the court and be aggressive against each other and then walk off the court and be friends again. That’s not always the case in regular sports,” she said.
She concluded, “It’s all about the kids to me.”