© P. Inglish, 2009

For a time, the Special Olympics Summer Games were held at Ohio State University as a McDonald’s Manager I was in charge of food service for several of the meals for athletes and their families. It was hard work and fun to watch the excitement of the competitors and their loved ones.

The Special Olympics and the Paralympics give a sporting chance to people that cannot compete in the Olympic Games because of physical or mental limitations. However, as we have found that exercise can begin to overcome some of these obstacles, times are changing. The first male Paralympian nearly crossed over to the actual Olympic Games in 2008, using carbon-based running prostheses and the next Summer Games will surely see his success.

Form experience, I have seen youth proceed to mainstream classes out of Special education with the help of my martial arts classes. A nonspeaking child with autism began to speak in class one night, answering drill commands as loudly as anyone else. Exercise can change the brain in good ways.

However, it cannot change that which has been cut out, which is how the Special Olympics was founded.

I learned the history of Special Olympics and the Paralympic Games through my martial arts and restaurant work and my interest in helping disabled youth.

Rose Marie Kennedy (1918 – 2005) is the reason we have Special Olympics in the 21^st Century.

This dear woman was the child Joseph and Rose Kennedy, the parents of President John F. Kennedy. Rose Marie was JFK’s sister who outlived him by 42 years and had been born one year after his own birth. As a child, she was well cared for and kept an intelligent diary. However, she was shy and retiring, and so was diagnosed as mentally retarded. What followed was a tragedy that lasted for long 64 years.

Rose Marie became irritable in puberty and was considered was considered violent because of it. That, along with shyness that was labeled Mental Retardation led her parents to have her lobotomized. This is a surgical procedure in which a small part of the reasoning part of the brain, the cerebrum is cut out and destroyed. A film example is displayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Rose Marie became and unresponsive vegetable-like creature for 64 years. Her parents may have been led to believe that the lobotomy was a magical procedure that would cure her, but that is not what they received.

Author Ronald Kessler wrote about this heartbreak in his book The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded (1996). Kessler writes that the doctor that performed the surgery, a Dr. Freeman, performed 3,000+ additional lobotomies and then his MD license was revoked.

While institutionalized since 1949, Rose Marie was visited often from her sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Mrs. Shriver founded Special Olympics as a legacy for Rose Marie and the hope that exists for anyone physically or mentally challenged. Mrs. Shriver has dedicated a large portion of her life to helping challenged individuals in order to give them the chance that Rose Marie should have had and never received. Mrs. Shriver and brother Ted Kennedy watched her die at the age of 86, of old age.

This is my favorite part of Special Olympics – the truth that a diagnosis does not need to be who the person is.

Mr. Kessler was able to uncover the truth about Rose Marie from Dr. Bertram Brown. Dr. Brown was Executive Director of the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. He stated that since Rose Marie could perform arithmetic, then she had an IQ of over 75, the threshold for Mental Retardation in public schools at the time. She should have gone to regular school. At only nine years old, the girl correctly solved problems such as 3-digit multiplication and division. Some mainstream classroom 9-year-olds today cannot do those problems.

Dr. Brown, was a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health as well. Brown felt that she may have had a normal IQ of 90 in the range of 90-100 being normal in a family where everyone else had an IQ of 130+. They did not know she was normal and she embarrassed them.

Each state in the union and each different country around the world has its own Special Olympics division with its won sports. Not all sports are performed in all states.

The Ohio Special Olymics offers training programs in the following events:

1. Alpine Skiing (Downhill)
2. Aquatics
3. Athletics
4. Basketball
5. Bowling
6. Cross Country Skiing
7. Cycling
8. Equestrian (Horse Riding)
9. Figure Skating
10. Soccer
11. Golf
12. Gymnastics (Artistic)
13. Motor Activities
14. Powerlifting
15. Roller Skating
16. Softball
17. Speed Skating
18. Tennis
19. Volleyball

While the Ohio events do not include martial arts, many martial artists in the state train individals with with challeneges and these folks compete in the Arnold Martial Arts Festival every spring in Columbus, Ohio at the Convention Center. I recently watched a squad of a dozen athletes perform a long demonstration of basic and advanced mocments for the audience several times with determination and without complaint. I wish everyone could see this.

UK Special Olympics offers more events than Ohio:

Aquatics, Alpine Skiing , Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Boccia, Bowling, Bowls, Cricket, Cycling, Equestrian, Floor Hockey, Soccer, Golf, Gymnastics, Kayaking, Judo;  

MATP - Motor Activities Training Program: Bean bag lift, Ball kick, Wide beam and bench, Ball lift (small and large), Ball push, and Log roll;

Netball, Powerlifting, Sailing, and Softball.

Look for your own state or country at: Select your Area.

My favorite so far would be MATP!