Changing lives of millions
Movement gave disabled athletes new opportunities
Mary Farrelly can’t take her eyes off her 8-year-old son, Owen. He is waiting in line to hit a volleyball. She’s never signed him up for an event like this. Does he know he’s supposed to go sit on the bench? Will he sit after he’s done?
It’s Owen’s turn. He’s never shown much interest in catching a ball or riding a bike at home, but Mary thought, just maybe, he’d like this. The coach hits the ball to Owen, and he hits it back. He hits it back! Tears that were already pooling in Mary’s eyes spill out.
She looks around, wiping away her tears. Making eye contact with the other parents, Mary realizes she’s not alone. All the parents at the Special Olympics event at Independence Park in Chicago, this is in 1990, have those same worries. There are plenty of tears, plenty of yells of joy. Mary starts talking to other parents. For so long she has felt isolated by her son’s disability, but she realizes almost immediately that the people here had gone through the same things, traveling down a parallel path.
Special Olympics is celebrating its
50th anniversary with a five-day event in Chicago that ended Saturday. By now the work of this organization is so ingrained in our culture that it’s hard to remember when it was a revolutionary idea and almost impossible to fully comprehend how influential it has been.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. and Ted, started the Special Olympics in 1968 — built around an oath for athletes: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt” — after she had campaigned for years for better treatment for people with intellectual disabilities. The first event was held at Chicago’s Soldier Field, bringing together a thousand athletes from the USA and Canada to play in more than
200 events. A representative from Tribune Charities told a volunteer that “they should be ashamed of yourself for putting these kinds of kids on display.”
After the first event, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley told Shriver the world will never be the same. Special Olympics programs have spread to 170 countries, giving more than 5 million athletes a chance to play. Longtime “Sports Illustrated” writer Jack McCallum, in a recent “Washington Post” column, dubbed it “one of history’s most transformative human rights movements.”
One Chicago family’s story
Owen, now 36, participates in dozens of Special Olympics events a year. Sports have been a constant thread in his life since the moment he hit that volleyball, and his fellow athletes and their families have become the support group carrying the Farrelly family through decades of triumphs and frustrations.
When Owen was 3 months old, Frank and wife Mary started to wonder if he had hearing or vision problems. He had trouble nursing. They took him to hospitals, and finally at Children’s Memorial, when he was about 8 months old, they were given the diagnosis, using the language of the time: their son had moderate mental retardation because he was born with two extra X chromosomes.
Doctors tried to find others with the abnormality — XXXY syndrome — but couldn’t. It affects one in every 50,000 male births. There’s no list of symptoms that encompasses what he struggles with, but his parents commented more than once that Owen, who is now 6-2 and 300 pounds, acts like a 6-year-old.
“He’s a toucher. He’s a feeler, a kisser; he’s annoying,” Mary says. “He does all the things you don’t want somebody to do, and we struggle with it, because Owen doesn’t stop. He’s compulsive.”
As Frank and Mary navigated their new reality, they got accustomed to using, and hearing, one word over and over: no. No, you can’t go to the same school as your brother and sisters. No, you can’t stay over at your friend’s house. Can my son play on that team? Go to that camp? Perform in that play?
When Mary first took Owen to the Chicago Park District’s Special Olympics programs at Independence Park, she heard something else — not yet. Potty training for the intellectually disabled usually happens much later. She was told by leaders when he was about 7 that when he was potty trained he could join a volleyball program.
A year later he started with Special Olympics, and the Farrellys’ lives changed. There was not a “no.” Instead, there was a place where Owen could be like other kids and Frank and Mary could be like other parents.
Frank eventually retired from a 33year career with a utility company and became a coach for all the Special Olympics programs at Shabbona Park, a small park not far from the family’s Northwest Chicago home that already had a program. Mary found career inspiration from her life with Owen as well, going back to school to become a social worker, intent on helping “families like ours.”
Owen’s integration into school never came easily. He started with the Chicago Public Schools when he was 3. Mary put him on a bus every day. “It was the scariest thing. I cried every day for two weeks. Every day, he’d throw his shoe out of the bus,” she says. “And how hard is it to put a 3-year-old on a bus? I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. It was horrible! But he was happy.”
Growing up with Owen
He graduated from Chicago Public Schools at 22, singing a song at the graduation ceremony. Since traditional jobs for the intellectually disabled didn’t work out for him, Owen joined his father at the park.
“The park district, with Frank there, or even when Frank’s not there, they were more accepting, it felt like to me,” Mary says. “He would like a job, but he can be a bully, and we don’t want him hurting anyone. It’s not because we think he’s a bad person; he’s just compulsive and you don’t know. We’re comfortable like this. It’s working out OK.”
Owen has two sisters, one older and one younger, and an older brother. His needs often took center stage as the four were growing up. Yet he would also get lost from time to time.
“I had four kids, but with him, I had to be here,” Mary says.
Says Frank: “The other kids had stuff. Frankie played football, the girls were in track and singing and all kinds of activ- ities, but Owen … the beauty and the detriment of Special Olympics is you’re constantly going. If you have three siblings, that’s you constantly off to Owen Land. It probably pisses them off.”
Says Mary, “It does. It’s come up. And yet every single kid has written a paper about their special brother. They’re crazy about him.”
Owen’s siblings are often there when he’s competing, volunteering and cheering him on. Although he’s been a part of Special Olympics long enough that his parents remember the 25th anniversary, the gatherings still move Mary to tears. Owen participates in track and field events — “I’m speedy! And cute!” he says — and there is something particularly special about crossing the finish line. “Nobody gets how much that means to a mom and to him,” Mary says.
Adaptive skills versions uplifting
Owen participates in nearly every sport the Chicago Park District and Special Olympics offer. Balance issues keep him from skiing and skating.
“Weightlifting is OK. I just practice hard enough, and I get the gold. I get the gold medal. I have three gold medals in powerlifting, and Barbara,” Owen says, nodding toward a friend nearby, “is in soccer, but I don’t like soccer so much.”
Weightlifting works particularly well for many Special Olympians, Frank said, because they feel as though they are challenging themselves rather than each other. There’s no “loser” apparent.
If Owen wants to play a sport but can’t quite master the rules or the moves, he can participate in the skills competition for each sport.
Life-long opportunities
There’s no upper age limit to Special Olympics. One athlete at tennis proudly told me he just turned 50.
At a tennis event on a sunny July morning at the Waveland Tennis Center, Owen found his spot on a bench. Teams from across the city had come. Owen is much bigger than that 8-year-old boy, and his hair is now flecked with spots of salt and pepper. He’s wearing a black and white uniform with “Shabbona Sharks” written across the front and the number 46 on the back. Some of his Sharks teammates were playing matches. Owen is in the skills competition, where he can hit the tennis ball, try serving and show off a backhand without the back and forth of a full match.
When his name is called, he runs to the court and gets into position. He holds out his racket, preparing for the ball to come his way.
“C’mon Owen! Keep your eye on the ball!” Frank says.
The ball is launched, and Owen swings, about 6 inches too high. The ball rolls back to the volunteer. Owen gets back into the ready position, and another ball flies his way. This time, he makes contact, but the ball sails off the court and hits a woman holding a clipboard. His wrist problems make it difficult for him to hit the ball squarely, even after years of trying.
Owen again gets back into position after giggling a bit at his mishit ball. This time, he gets it. His teammates cheer, his dad pumps his fist, and Owen runs off the court with a wide smile. “I was doing fine! Yep, I had fun,” Owen says.
Music blares over a loudspeaker. The athletes hug, high-five and gently tease. Parents sit and talk, mindful of when their children lope onto the court. Some look anxious, others as if they’d been doing this for years. It is difficult to know if any of these athletes are here for the first time, if today is another day that will change a life and give a family lasting comfort. The athletes take their turns — brave, always, in the attempt.
Because they have the chance to be.
The Special Olympics began in 1968 — built around an oath for athletes: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”