Special Olympics Florida is holding its Fall Classic event this weekend at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort. About a thousand athletes from across the state will come together to compete after winning in local and regional events.
Meghan McLean is the Chief Operating Officer of Special Olympics Florida. She says the organization is more than just a collection of annual sports trainings and competitions - it’s a culture of inclusion that values the dignity, development, enrichment and success of each of its athletes. There are more than 75,000 athletes on Special Olympics Florida’s roster, of all ages.
“We have athletes in our program starting at age two, and we have no maximum age limit,” McLean said. “So, we have athletes competing this weekend who are in their 90s. We really like to be a place that people with intellectual disabilities can call home for a lifetime.”
“We also have our athlete leadership training, where, in addition to competing in one of our 27 sports that we offer year-round, athletes have the ability to enter leadership courses, where they learn about public speaking, about advocacy, and how to be a coach in a sport,” added McLean. “A lot of our athletes may sort of graduate from competitively participating in the sport to wanting to be a coach, and take on that leadership role.”
This weekend’s Fall Classic will feature six types of sports - power lifting, pickleball, flag football, softball, and two types of gymnastics.
“We offer both artistic gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics,” explained McLean. “Artistic is when you see the beam and the parallel bars and the uneven bars…and then we have athletes that participate in rhythmic gymnastics, which is routines with the hoop, the ball, the ribbon and a floor routine.”
McLean said it’s important for audiences to see that these athletes are not different than any other athlete. “They have trained their hardest to make it to this point. They've had some successes and failures.”
But she added, attendees may see something unexpected at the games – free health screenings for the athletes between events. Medical providers from more than a half-dozen disciplines will be on hand to screen athletes for issues with vision, hearing, or foot-related issues, among others.
“We do this at almost all of our competitions, we're really proud of that,” McLean said. “[Heath care] is a really a gap for a lot of our athletes, and it's for many reasons, but a healthier athlete is a better athlete.”
In fact, Special Olympics as a global organization has become the largest health care provider for people with intellectual disabilities, McLean said, after recognizing the need.
McLean recounted a recent story of an excellent track and field athlete she knows who was consistently coming in second place, in every event. Always, second place. One day at a screening, it became apparent that he needed corrective lenses, and once he had them, he began winning every race quite handily, earning first place medals time after time.
When he was asked about what seemed to be a change in his abilities, he explained it was simply the change in his vision – it had been so poor previously that he’d had to follow the person in first place to know where to go during the race. Once he could see for himself, he realized his true athletic potential.
“So, that’s the broad impact that we have through both our sports programs and our health programs,” explained McLean. “We try to make sure that the athletes have the skills that they need to live the life that they want to live, with the level of independence that they want to have.”
