(3/3) “I wanted to quit Special Olympics after the very first...

(3/3)  “I wanted to quit Special Olympics after the very first day.  It took me two hours to get there.  It was raining the whole time.  But my mom forced me to keep going, and I learned to enjoy it.  We’d go run in the park once a week.  I was around people who didn’t tease me.  Nobody called me names.  I wasn’t made to feel stupid.  After a few months our coach convinced my mom to let me go to an overnight event.  It was at Westchester State University Teachers College.  I did three events: the long jump, the softball throw, and the 50-yard dash.  I won all three.  And I’ve been competing ever since.  It’s changed my life so much I can’t explain.  I’m more confident.  I speak at schools and colleges.  I own a house.  I pay property taxes.  If there’s something not going right in my town, I’ll go down to city council and complain.  And I’m still competing.  I’m sixty-five and this year I tried out for the tennis team.  I picked weeds off a public court and spent hundreds of hours hitting the ball against a wall.  But I didn’t make the team.  And I’ll tell you what, I went back to my dorm and cried.  And it takes a lot to make me cry.  But I wanted compete so badly, because this is where I feel important.  I think the feeling I get when I win a medal is the same feeling a President gets when they’re getting elected.  It’s the feeling of achieving something that you dreamed about.  And people with intellectual disabilities don’t get to feel that enough.”  
(Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi, UAE)