By Gary Nager
Although I’ve been doing my job for 20 years, I’m embarrassed to say that I had never attended a Special Olympics competition before I visited the 2014 Pasco County Special Olympics “Summer Games,” which were held on March 4 on the campus of Wesley Chapel High (WCH). And, what I saw was that the Special Olympics is more about love and friendship and the true spirit of competition than it is about winning medals.
Hundreds of athletes — most school-age, but some older — represented not only most of the schools in the Wesley Chapel area, but also several of the special needs organizations in the county.
Pasco superintendent of schools Kurt Browning, WCH principal Carin Nettles and Thomas Weightman Middle School principal Brandon Bracciale helped welcome everyone for an outstanding afternoon of competition on a beautiful day.
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Pasco Special Olympics co-director Valerie Lundin says that some of the more talented athletes use the county event as a warm-up for the upcoming Area Games (which will be held at several different venues between March 15 and April 5), and the best of those will advance to the 2014 State Special Olympics Games, which will be held at Disney’s Wide World of Sports May 16-18. Lundin says the cycling for eastern Pasco’s Area Games will be held at WCH on Thursday, March 27.
But, even though it appeared that some of the athletes at the County Games weren’t necessarily interested in competing, they took part in everything from cycling to soccer, from bocce to the baseball throw and from the running broad jump to tennis — and they all had friends, family and supporters on hand to congratulate them for their efforts. Awesome job!
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