JOURNEY LEADS TO DREAM JOB
Before on-camera, behind-the-scenes roles, Plunkett dealt with family issues
One of ESPN’s analysts for the Special Olympics got unique training for the assignment.
Classmates called him a “retard,” made fun of his stutter and bullied him every day, Dustin Plunkett recalled of his childhood. And so over the years, Plunkett said, he repeatedly asked his parents the same question: What’s wrong with me?
Plunkett said his parents didn’t want to discuss it.
“I had nobody to talk to,” he said. “There were nights I would cry myself to sleep. It got so bad at school I would have to fight.”
Almost two decades later, Plunkett’s former tormentors might see him on national TV as the Special Olympics are broadcast through Aug. 2, during which ESPN will help spotlight the organization that has staged events for intellectually disabled athletes such as Plunkett for almost 50 years.
Some 6,500 athletes from 165 countries have descended on this city for the World Games, but Plunkett is likely the only one who has been signing autographs and posing for photos recently. While ESPN is using him as an analyst, the Special Olympics has continued to use him as an ambassador who has traveled to China, South Korea and the White House on behalf of the organization.
“I don’t think about him as having any disability,” said Jeff Carr, chief operating officer of the World Games organizing committee. “I think of him as Dustin, my friend who is going to conquer the world, who is conquering the world.”
The Special Olympics dispatches Plunkett in part because of the power of his story and the answer to that long-haunting question: What’s wrong with me?
For one, he lived with a cleft palate until the fifth grade, when a speech therapist detected it and helped arrange for surgery that eliminated Plunkett’s stutter. But Plunkett said his parents, who separated when he was 7, appeared to be in denial about his intellectual struggles.
His mother fought to keep him in regular classes rather than special ed courses, even though Plunkett continued to struggle academically. When Plunkett was 13, the director of a Special Olympics program in Los Angeles County approached him about joining. Almost two years later, Plunkett’s father had not signed the required permission form, even though, Plunkett said, he continued to badger his father about it.
At the same time, Plunkett said, he still was asking questions of the program’s director, Chuck Martucci, who suggested Plunkett meet some of the athletes.
“Before I could get into the building to meet them, three of the athletes come up to me and they say, ‘ We’re about to go play basketball. Would you like to join us?’ ” said Plunkett, 34. “So I’m out there on the basketball court, and I notice they talk just like me, got the same skills as me. So I said, ‘Timeout. I’ve got a question for you guys.’
“I asked them why did they join the Special Olympics, and they all said, ‘Because it’s a second family.’ Growing up, I was moved home to home, family member to family member, because nobody in my family knew how to take care of me because of my cleft palate and intellectual disability.
“I talked to them about how it was like growing up, and it was exactly the situations that I went through. So I felt comfortable and open talking to them about anything. It was amazing to see how fast we became brothers and a family rather than just friends.”
With the permission form still unsigned, Plunkett brought home his new friends to meet his father.
“That’s what got him to finally sign,” Plunkett said.
Plunkett joined two soccer teams and within a year was named team leader of the program. In 1998, as a member of a basketball team, he won his first gold medal while competing at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion.
“That’s when I knew I was going to be in this program for the rest of my life,” he said.
But his life remained challenging. He struggled through high school before graduating and at 23 got unexpected news from his father.
“My dad goes, ‘We’re getting evicted. You have seven days to go find a place to live,’ ” Plunkett said, adding that he was preparing to call a homeless shelter on the seventh day before he got a call from one of his mother’s former boyfriends.
The man gave Plunkett a place to stay and became a father figure at a time his father abandoned him Plunkett said.
“My own dad pretty much just threw me out on the streets,” he said.
Leaning on his surrogate family, Plunkett got even more in- volved with the Special Olympics. He began coaching athletes, joined the leadership program in 1997 and developed into one of the organization’s ambassadors. And in 2007, the Special Olympics sent him to Shanghai, where he spoke alongside retired Chinese basketball star Yao Ming in front of 120,000 people at the World Games.
“I didn’t feel that I could tell people about (my personal story) until I joined the Special Olympics,” he said. “That’s what helped me find my voice and said, ‘ You are the one that can put a stop to this. You are the one who can stand up for people who are in the same situation you are in.’ ”
Hired by the World Games Organizing Committee in Los Angeles as a full-time employee in 2014, Plunkett also was named to the board of directors.
ESPN invited him to its redcarpet ceremony for the annual ESPYs. That, in turn, led to his gig as an analyst for the network. It also increased the publicity that led to recent autograph and photo requests in nearby Carson, where Special Olympics volunteers recognized him while picking up T-shirts and materials for the World Games.
Although he won’t be competing in the Games because of obligations with the organizing committee and ESPN, Plunkett said members of his family would attend for the first time since he joined the Special Olympics 20 years ago.
His mother’s denial that her son is intellectually disabled appears to be over.
“It took her years,” said Plunkett, adding that he stopped asking his parents about his disabilities eight years ago and decided to focus on his abilities. He has helped inspire people, including Debi Anderson, another Special Olympics athlete who accompanied Plunkett on the trip to the White House.
She said Plunkett helped her develop the confidence and skills she needed to speak in public about her own experience.
“He leads by his example,” she said. “And he has a million-dollar smile.”
“It was amazing to see how fast we became brothers and a family rather than just friends.” Dustin Plunkett, on his relationships with other Special Olympians