Tulsa World: Giving thanks for Eunice Kennedy Shriver's founding Special Olympics

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Giving thanks for Eunice Kennedy Shriver's founding Special Olympics

By HARVEY MACKAY United Features Syndicate
Published: 11/22/2009 2:22 AM
Last Modified: 11/22/2009 1:00 PM

In this season of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her remarkable vision that created the Special Olympics. And I am grateful for the thousands of folks who work to keep that dream alive.

I recently attended the Special Olympics Arizona Breakfast with Champions and a sell-out crowd of 650. A good friend invited me, and what a gift that invitation turned out to be.

This was the most moving event I have attended in many years.

We learned that in Arizona alone, there are 180,000 people living with intellectual disabilities. Until recently, those citizens had few options for education, sports, jobs and all the everyday aspects of life so many of us take for granted. To help meet these needs, Special Olympics Arizona preaches "Donate, Volunteer, Participate."

At the breakfast, we heard from Loretta Claiborne, a Special Olympics athlete who has dedicated her life to showing that persons with developmental disabilities are uniquely talented but often overlooked or ignored. Special is a most appropriate word for this remarkable woman.

Loretta was born partially blind, intellectually disabled and unable to walk or talk until age 4. She was able to overcome tremendous adversity to become a world-class, award-winning Special Olympics athlete and motivational speaker. A partial list of her achievements includes:

Finishing 26 marathons, twice placing among the top 100 women in the Boston Marathon;

Competing in seven International Special Olympics World Games in distance running, bowling and figure skating;

Winning the 1996 ESPY Arthur Ashe Award for courage from ESPN; and

Being inducted into the Women in Sports Hall of Fame, Special Olympics Pennsylvania.

In her spare time, she has become fluent in four languages, earned a black belt in karate and has been conferred honorary doctorate degrees in Humane Letters from Quinnipiac University and Villanova University.

Those accomplishments would have been unlikely before Eunice Kennedy Shriver started her lifelong quest to improve the lives of the intellectually challenged.

Mrs. Shriver was inspired to act by the plight of her older sister Rosemary, who lived with what was then referred to as a "mild form of retardation" and was institutionalized most of her life.

Mrs. Shriver was frustrated by the lack of athletic opportunities for women and the realization of how much worse it was for people who are intellectually challenged and who rarely received any form of education. So she set out to shake things up.

The first Special Olympics was held in 1968 in Chicago, with 1,000 athletes participating and about 100 people in the stands. Today, more than 3 million athletes representing 180 countries participate in the biannual games.

The athletes compete according to this oath: "Let me win, but if I cannot win let me be brave in the attempt."

Mackay's Moral: Want to show your gratitude in a special way? Contact your local Special Olympics organization, and I guarantee you'll get more than you give!

On the Web, visit tulsaworld.com/mackay .

By HARVEY MACKAY United Features Syndicate

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