The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Annual Games set to open today in New Haven area
Organized chaos would be a perfect way to describe the scene inside the Special Olympic Connecticut headquarters in the last few days, weeks and even months.
With an anticipated 6,000 athletes, Unified teammates, coaches and volunteers making their way to Southern Connecticut State, Yale and Hamden Hall this weekend for the annual Summer Games, there is rarely a dull moment. Factoring in the celebrations because this is the 50th anniversary since the inaugural Special Olympic Games were held in Chicago in 1968 and things are speeding into overdrive for Special Olympics Connecticut President Robert “Beau” Doherty and his staff, many of whom have worked together for a decade or even two.
Connecticut was one of the 25 states with a team of athletes at the groundbreaking event and the state has been at the forefront of so many Special Olympics events over the last five decades.
Doherty began his association with Special Olympics in the 1970s in Massachusetts and he can still remember a programdefining meeting in Vermont called by Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver that still resonates with him and other Special Olympics dignitaries all these years later.
“Mrs. Shriver got everybody together in Vermont and gave everybody a big lecture,” Doherty said. “She said listen, ‘this is a sports program and I expect coaches to coach, I expect you to find coaches who know what they are doing. I expect you train them, I expect officials to officiate by the rules which might mean in certain cases that an athlete could be disqualified. If you guys aren’t treating our athletes in a serious
fashion, what are you all saying about them.’ I think around that time, you started to see a change to a more serious sports program.”
As the years have moved on, Shriver’s dream of giving people with intellectual disabilities an athletic outlet has become incredibly successful. But even she probably never could envision that one day it would become a world-wide phenomenon with more than 180 countries active in Special Olympics.
While the athletes are the deserving headliners at state or international competitions, the growth of the organization goes much deeper than staging some high-profile athletic showcases.
Anybody who makes their way around the grounds at this weekend’s Summer Games might be amazed at the number of medical professionals tending to Special Olympians at the Healthy Athletes Village with eye care, dental care, foot care, hearing and massage therapy available.
“Many people are beginning to realize that this is an underserved population and changes have to be put into place,” Dr. Susan Danberg said. “There are over 11 million people in the world with some sort of intellectual disability and we are hitting thousands of them, tens of thousands of them so it really is the tip of the iceberg. Our ultimate goal to is be able to change health systems in countries so we everyone knows how to take care of a patient with intellectual disability.”
Danberg, an eye care professional with a practice in Glastonbury, has been offering her services at events since the 1991 Special Olympic World Games in Minneapolis as part of the American Optometric Association Sports Vision Section which their first eye health screening. In 2016 she took a role as an advisor for Special Olympics Intellectual.
No event in Connecticut drew more attention to Special Olympics than the 1995 World Games. Doherty said that Special Olympics Connecticut went from having about 5,000 volunteers to call upon before the event to being consistently at the 12,000 mark with volunteers.
The 1995 World Games also was a launching point for the popularity of Unified Sports. It began locally with a meeting between Doherty and CIAC Executive Director Mike Savage.
Five Special Olympics Connecticut staff members work in the CIAC office and Doherty said that 95 percent of the Connecticut high school have Unified Sports programs featuring partnerships with individuals with and without intellectual disabilities.
Doherty said that the program run in Connecticut has served as a model for other states and countries resulting in 1.5 million people worldwide taking part in Unified Sports.
“That is the future of the organization according to Tim Shriver, who took over for his mother and particularly with youth,” Doherty said. “There is a huge effort worldwide.”